Artemis Goes To Sports Camp
by Padfoot's Blondie
Summary: When Artemis's parents force him to go to sports camp, Artemis is horrified. Juliet and Holly go with him to keep him company, but that doesn't mean they keep him from making a complete fool out of himself! AxH.  Rated T cuz I feel like it COMPLETE
1. Chapter 1

**Hi people! Enjoy! :)**

Artemis was reclining on a cloud, floating on a patch of sunlight. The warmth that surrounded him cocooned him and kept him comfortably safe inside his dreamland. Artemis relished in the perfect feeling of being caught between consciousness and slumber, when all of a sudden, he felt himself being shaken gently by his arm.

Artemis groaned at the unwelcome intrusion in his perfect dreamland. The incessant shaking did its job however, and Artemis was ingloriously ripped from his calmness.

"What! What do you want from me?" Artemis cried, still so sleepy that he was unaware of what he was saying.

Butler laughed and clapped Artemis on the back. "Your parents have some, uh, news for you, Artemis. They want you downstairs in the living room in five minutes." With that, Butler took one last glance at his sleepy charge and headed downstairs to the living room.

Artemis glared at the door that Butler had disappeared through and groaned as he swung his legs off the bed. He groggily stood up, but had to fall face down back onto the bed, as he quickly got a huge head rush.

Unfortunately for Artemis, he fell directly on his nose, resulting in a sharp burst of pain shooting through his face. Artemis let out a quick succession of unprintable swear words at the pain (uncharacteristic of him, but he _had_ just smashed his nose in).

He stood up once again, holding his nose gingerly, and headed out of his bedroom, grumbling grumpily and angrily at the world.

As Artemis stumbled into the living room, he noticed that a family meeting was about to be held. His mother, father, Butler, and Juliet were all sitting comfortably on couches. Artemis immediately felt apprehensive of the situation. The last time a meeting had been held like this, he had been forced to go back to school. The time before that, it had been that he wasn't allowed to play with advanced chemistry sets that the schools owned.

See? Nothing good came out of these meetings. So Artemis was right to be on his guard.

Artemis's mother smiled at him as he walked in. "Take a seat, Arty," she said warmly, patting the spot next to her on the couch. Artemis walked over slowly, eyeing his parents and employees/friends suspiciously. He sat down on the spot and looked around the room.

"So what's this meeting about?" Artemis inquired.

His father grinned at him. "We feel like this summer is a great opportunity for you to make friends and get out into the real world more!"

Artemis did not like the sound of this one bit.

"Excuse me?" Artemis asked, now a little scared as to what his parents had in mind for him.

His mother who had been smiling at him, now turned to smile at his father. "Arty, we only have what's best for you in mind. We ran the idea by Butler and Juliet, and they both thought it would be a great idea."

Artemis turned to look at the Butler siblings. Butler was looking stoic as usual, but Juliet appeared to be working very hard to stifle laughter. That was never a good sign.

"What exactly is this plan?" Artemis was extremely nervous now. He did not like where this was going.

"We're sending you to sports camp!" His mother cried excitedly.

Artemis was certain that if someone offered him a choice between being stampeded by a herd of buffalo and going to sports camp, he would choose being stampeded. That one would be less painful.

"Mother, Father, Butler, Juliet, I will not go to sports camp. I refuse." Artemis crossed his arms smugly.

His father chuckled. "That's a funny joke, Arty. You start tomorrow. The bus will come pick you up at 8:30 a.m. and you will return home at 4:30 in the afternoon. The camp that you will be going to will involve all kinds of sports. You are going to have the best time of your life, trust me!" 

Artemis honestly doubted he would ever trust his father ever again.

"I can't believe you all are making me go to _sports_ camp, of all things! And you're making me a ride a _bus?_ But that's so common!" He cried childishly.

Juliet couldn't hold back her laughter any longer. "Artemis, just shut up!" she laughed. "It's fine. I volunteered to go with you. Also, Holly is coming with us." Artemis was about to ask her how Holly would be able to go also, when his parents stood up abruptly.

"We're going for a walk around the grounds. Ta!" With that, Angeline grabbed Artemis's father's hand and they exited the room. Normally, Artemis didn't care when his parents held hands, but just seeing them united in his obvious discomfort made him annoyed.

"Am I seriously going to sports camp, Butler?" Artemis asked Butler. Butler nodded at him.

"This is horrible! I can't play sports! Have the past few years taught you anything about my athletic abilities, or lack thereof?" Artemis said desperately.

Butler chuckled and shook his head. "Artemis, calm down. You can do this, Juliet and Holly are going to be there with you, so it's not like you're not going to know anyone."

Artemis groaned. "Oh, come on, Butler. You know that they're both just going to mercilessly make fun of me. I'd rather go not knowing anyone."

Juliet raised her hand and waved. "Guys, stop talking about me like im not in the room! And yes, Arty, you're right as usual. You will be made fun of, my friend." She giggled and walked out of the room, punching invisible opponents as she walked into the kitchen.

Butler sighed as he looked at the door that Juliet had just walked through. "Sometimes I worry about that girl," he said forlornly. Artemis waved his hand in front of Butler's face.

"Excuse me, old friend, but I'm about to be killed by remorseless children with hockey sticks. How are you worried about Juliet and not me?" Butler just stared at him.

When Butler didn't answer, Artemis voiced another question. "And anyway, how is Holly going to go anyway? She's three feet tall, in case I'm the only one who caught that little tidbit of information."

Butler stood up. "She's already _mesmered_ everyone at the camp. They won't see anything out of the ordinary."

Artemis was astounded. "Everyone at the-" He started. Butler nodded.

"Artemis, you'll be fine. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go."

"Where are you going?"

"Uh… I have to go… uh… wrap… um… a, uh, present. Yes! Wrap a present. Bye!" With that, Butler left the room.

Artemis was wholly confused. Butler didn't wrap presents. Butler wouldn't be caught dead wrapping presents!

Artemis was wondering why everyone in the room felt it necessary to ditch him, when he thought of a much more disturbing thought. He was being sent to sports camp, tomorrow!

He put his head in his hands. Nothing good could possibly come out of this…

**HA! Just imagine Arty at sports camp… *grins* that's gotta be a sight to see. So! I would act like I couldn't care less if you didn't review, but that would be a total lie. So please review! REVIEWWWW! *takes deep breath* just had to let that out. I apologize. :D**

**-blondie**


	2. Chapter 2

**HI GUYS! **

**I hope you guys liked that enthusiastic greeting! My shrink told me that if I greet people enthusiastically then they would like me more.**

**Just kidding I don't have a shrink! But if I did I bet that's what he'd say. Or she. But im guessing he.**

**Disclaimer: Arty isn't mine. Unfortunately.**

**NOTES THAT SHOULD NOT BE IGNORED: **

**Warning: this story will contain OC's. as much as I hate oc's, I realized that this story will have to have them, as Artemis is going to camp. Don't worry though; they won't be too relevant to the story. Although I might make one up for Juliet to fall in love with… eh I don't know.**

**Also! This story will contain AxH slash, but gradually. Very gradually, my friends.**

**Oh and no spoilers for the Atlantis complex. As if I would spoil things!**

**Now, onto the story. Enjoy! :D**

Artemis figured that if he was going to be attending sports camp the next day, he needed to actually know how to play sports.

Artemis went upstairs to his room after a long wallowing session and immediately sat down at his computer with a pen and piece of paper. He did his research and found out the most played sports were soccer, football, basketball, lacrosse, hockey, dodge ball, baseball, softball, and kickball. He wrote these names down on his paper and wrote down how to play them. When he was finished, his list looked like this:

_Common Sports and How People Commonly Play Them._

_Soccer: kick the ball in the goal. Possibly injure others in pursuit of scoring a goal._

_Football: I think I'll just sit this game out._

_Basketball: Be tall. Throw the ball in the hoop while dodging annoying players and their annoying blocks._

_Lacrosse: it seems dangerous._

_Hockey: it seems even more dangerous._

_Dodge ball: hit your opponents with the ball without getting hit._

_Baseball: seems boring._

_Softball: seems the most boring._

_Kickball: combination of baseball and soccer. Should be interesting._

When Artemis was finished with his list, he sat back in his chair, feeling highly satisfied with himself. He glanced at the time. It was 9 p.m. Artemis decided that since he would possibly be dying tomorrow, he would need his sleep.

He got dressed for bed and climbed in. He promptly fell into a fitful slumber filled with dreams of playing terrifying sports and getting hit in the head with various balls and bats and other equipment.

Artemis woke up at exactly 6 a.m. and sat up in bed, sweating. He tried to remember what his dreams had been about. When he vaguely remembered that they had had something to do with failing horribly at sports, he stopped thinking about it. He would have that as his reality in a few hours.

Artemis groaned as he thought of the upcoming day. He glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of his room and noticed the time.

_Crap! I woke up late!_ He thought, and hauled himself out of bed. He felt absurdly grateful that he hadn't had head rush today and crushed his nose for a second time. Artemis walked into his closet and chose a plain black suit to wear for the day. Once he was dressed, Artemis started downstairs.

When Artemis arrived in the kitchen, he found Butler already up and walking around, preparing breakfast for Artemis and other things for the day.

"Good morning, Butler," Artemis said as he sat down at the kitchen table. Butler looked up at him.

"Morning, Arte- Holy Hell, Artemis! What are you wearing?" Butler exclaimed. Didn't Artemis know you couldn't do sports (or really any physical activity) in a suit unless you were a highly qualified bodyguard such as himself?

Apparently not.

"Artemis, you need to go change. You cannot go to sports camp in a suit. Go change and put on something you can sweat in."

Artemis wrinkled his nose. "I don't sweat, Butler. Sweating is for the poor."

Butler just stared at his charge. Artemis took this as agreement and waited for his breakfast to show up in front of him. It didn't. All he saw was Butler's massive head blocking his view of the table. 

"Butler, how did you get down here-" Artemis started, but Butler cut him off.

"Artemis, go change. Now." Butler's tone held no room for resistance. Artemis practically felt his spine curving to suit Butler's request to go change as quickly as possible.

Artemis tried to sprint upstairs but got tired on the 6th step and had to rest. When he felt that his strength was properly restored, he continued on his way up the stairs and into his room.

When Artemis showed up downstairs again for breakfast at 6:30, Butler's eyes almost popped out of his head, but decided not to comment on his young charge's outfit. At least it was better than the suit.

Artemis had chosen to wear a bright red jersey, white lacrosse shorts, white ankle high basketball sneakers with red stripes on them, and various wrist and headbands that were like sweat bands. He also had on athletic goggles. Where Artemis had found all this, Butler had no idea.

Artemis stood in the kitchen and held his arms out from his sides. He spun around so Butler could see his entire outfit. "How is this, Butler? Will this outfit work?" Artemis asked once he had faced Butler again from his spinning. He tilted to the side as the world lurched; spinning perhaps was not the greatest idea to do so early in the morning.

Butler grabbed Artemis's arm to keep him from falling onto the table where his eggs were waiting. "Artemis, spazzing out will not help you at camp," he remarked. Artemis stared up at his bodyguard.

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. You look fine, now go eat your breakfast. I made it with peppers and other hot stuff."

Artemis grinned and quickly started inhaling his food. When he was finished, he looked at the time. It was 7;30! The bus would be coming in an hour! Thank god that he was already ready. He would have time to do some work on this project he was planning…

When Artemis disappeared upstairs, Butler looked at the spot where Artemis had been spinning earlier and shook his head slowly. Artemis was in for one hell of a ride…

At 8:25, Artemis came downstairs and picked up his backpack. The backpack contained sunscreen, a water bottle filled with wine (Butler had protested but Artemis insisted), a water bottle filled with water (because Butler insisted), a bathing suit, a towel, his Blackberry and phone, and flip flops. Artemis had packed it himself (after Butler had told him what to pack).

Artemis bade Butler goodbye and walked out the front door. He sat down on the front stoop to wait for the camp bus to come pick him up.

The time passed. And passed.

And just kept passing with no sign of stopping.

Artemis checked his Blackberry for the time. It was 8:50. His bus was already twenty minutes late! He was supposed to be at camp at nine o'clock, and it was a thirty-five minute ride away! He was going to be late! On his first day of camp, no less!

_Oh well,_ he thought._ At least that's less time I'll be at camp._

Artemis decided to go back inside to tell Butler that the bus still wasn't here. While he tried to go inside, he banged into Juliet and Holly as they were walking out of his house. He clutched his head where he had smashed it against Juliet's and walked around blindly in pain for a few minutes. When he gathered to his senses again, he looked up at Juliet and Holly and smiled. He loved seeing his friends, especially Holly.

His smile faded, however, as he saw the faces of his friends. Both girls were staring at him open-mouthed with incredulous expressions on their faces. All at once, they both burst into hysterical laughter.

Artemis looked behind him to search for the funny thing so he could join in on the laughter, but all he saw was greenery. He glanced back at his friends, confused.

All of a sudden, a small yellow school bus pulled up in his driveway. He spun around to see the bus, but his foot caught on a rock that wasn't even rooted to the ground and was about 2 centimeters in radius and he tripped and fell flat on his face. Juliet and Holly's laughter tripled in volume as Holly hauled Artemis up from his prone position on the pavement and set him back on his feet.

Artemis's face was burning red; not only had he just embarrassed himself in front of Holly and Juliet, but he knew for a fact that everyone on the bus had seen it too. He could see through the bus windshield; even the bus driver was cracking up. Artemis drew a deep breath and walked towards the bus, his head held high.

He ascended the steps to get onto the bus and naturally hit his head on the railing (even he didn't know how it happened) but it hurt like hell. He clutched his head for the second time in ten minutes and continued climbing the steps.

When he finally got actually on the bus, he looked at the scene before him. A bus full of laughing pre-pubescent kids who were having a great time at his expense.

Artemis knew this was a bad idea from the start…

**I know I know, you guys want to see him at camp. I'll be writing it shortly, don't worry! Anyways I hope you enjoyed this chapter, cuz well if you didn't then I would be very sad, very sad indeed. (I can't believe I just used the word indeed) *shakes head at self* SO! Review because I love you guys and want to know how much you love this story! :) or hate it and want it to die in a hole. Or just in-between.**

**It's all good. **

**Unless you want it to die in a hole, which is totally not cool.**

**REVIEWWW!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Heyy guys, what's crackalackin! Not much with me. I'm actually pretty tired. *yawns* how boring am I! can't even keep my eyes open! (well I did wake up at 7:30 and go to sports camp all day but that's not the point.) THE POINT IS, I wrote a new chapter for all you wonderful reviewers, all 27 of you *beams with delight***

**Now! I'm going to answer the reviews that were given by people who don't have an account or private messaging. Before I start though, people. GET ACCOUNTS SO I CAN RESPOND TO YOUR REVIEWS! Please. :)**

**Hurry: I did hurry! Here's the new chapter!**

**Can't think of a username: think of a username. And yes, fun WILL ensue. YOU'RE A CRYSTAL BALL PERSON! What are they called again? *someone whispers the answer* oh yes. Predictors. Or something like that.**

**LazyPirate: oh, thank you *blushes* that makes me extraordinarily happy and flattered to hear that! But no, I don't have the Atlantis complex yet. I also get it on august 3****rd****. If there's no arty/holly in it, I'm gonna shoot Eoin Colfer (metaphorically heh heh please don't kill me for saying that)**

**Sliz225: yeah, the concept cracks me up too, lol. Just the thought of artemis at sports camp… bahahahahah!**

**Lisa: thanks :) I agree hehe. Artemis doesn't.**

**Okay! Now that everyone's been responded to, on with the story! Enjoy! :D**

Artemis took a deep breath and started down the bus aisle, ignoring the laughter. He didn't even know how to handle it; he had never been laughed at like this in his life! He didn't think it was an experience he would want to repeat any time soon.

He finally found an empty seat at the back of the bus and quickly sat down in it. Juliet and Holly both sat down next to him, squished into the seat. Artemis was squashed against the window.

Juliet glanced at Artemis and then Holly, then sighed and looked straight ahead of her at the back of the seat in front of them. No one talked.

"Well, this is awkward," Juliet said awkwardly. Artemis and Holly just stared at her and nodded slowly. Artemis looked like a fish with his ridiculous goggles on. It made Juliet giggle.

The bus ride was filled with monkey sounds and squawking noises. The kids who weren't being totally weird were just rocking out while listening to their iPods. Artemis took his Blackberry out of his backpack and started emailing important people on it. Juliet started rocking out while listening to music in her head, and Holly just looked at Juliet like she was out of her mind (because she totally was).

When the bus finally pulled up to the camp, Artemis frantically tried to look out the window to see the camp but couldn't see out of the window because some kid on the other side of the window had decided it was a good idea to smash his face on the glass, effectively blocking the view of the outside world.

"We're here!" The bus driver cried, who then cracked open a bottle of wine and proceeded to drink some. They all just stared at him, confused.

All of a sudden, a tough-looking lady holding an official-looking clipboard climbed on the bus.

"Alright!" The lady roared, effectively shutting everyone up. "Newcomers! Let's straighten everything out. Artemis Fowl?" She looked around the bus squinting, as if that would help her find a kid who she had never seen before. Artemis tentatively raised his hand.

"Right here," he said, his voice quiet.

"Ah. What camp?"

"Multisport."

"Okay," she lady said, checking off something on her clipboard. "Holly Short?" 

"Multisport," Holly said quickly.

"Juliet Butler?"

"Wrestling."

The woman squinted down at her clipboard. "It says here that you're going to Multisport."

Juliet shot her a dazzling smile. "No, I'm absolutely certain it says wrestling."

The lady glared at her. "No. It says Multisport. Besides, we don't even have a wrestling camp here."

"But-" Juliet started to protest, but the lady interrupted her by actually breaking her clipboard in half.

"NO BUTS, YOU'RE GOING TO MULTISPORT!" The lady shrieked at the top of her lungs. She grabbed the wine bottle from the bus driver, took a swig, and left. The kids started filing out of the bus after her, as if nothing had happened that was out of the ordinary.

When Artemis got off the bus, he surveyed his surroundings. There was a huge building to the right where many kids were headed. In the building, there was a huge opening in the wall, kind of like a garage that led to a huge gym.

Straight ahead was the fields and tent. There were also picnic tables with signs in front of them. One of the signs said "Soccer Camp", another said "Drama Camp", one said "Multisport Camp", and many more. Multisport was supposed to be gathered around underneath the tent. Juliet was still pissed about having to go to Multisport, so she decided that they should go over to soccer camp.

Over at soccer camp, there were kids having water fights, one girl that was dancing crazily with her ear buds in, tiny little kids about six or seven years old were continuously juggling soccer balls, and one kid that was randomly painting faces. Holly ran over to the kid painting faces.

"Hi! I'm Holly. Paint my face like a cat!" Holly said excitedly. The kid nodded.

"I'm Greg. Sure," the kid remarked, and proceeded to make Holly's face into a cat's. Juliet walked over to the girl dancing crazily.

"Can I see your iPod?" Juliet asked her politely. The girl didn't look up, stop dancing, answer or give any other indication that she heard what Juliet said. Juliet figured that she had her iPod on pretty loud. So, instead of trying to get her attention, she just took the iPod and ear buds from the girl to see what she was listening to.

"Hey!" the girl shouted angrily. "Give that back!" She made a grab for the iPod, but Juliet had already stuffed the ear buds in her ears.

She was met with silence.

She looked at the girl. "There's no music. Why isn't there music?" Juliet looked down at the iPod. It was off. The girl crossed her arms and glared at Juliet defiantly.

"I don't need music to dance. I dance to my own beat." She started dancing crazily again, so Juliet slinked off with her iPod. She would look at it later.

"All right, Soccer Camp! Let's go!" A counselor with a British accent in a bright read shirt called out, signaling all the soccer camp kids to follow him. The kids picked up their backpacks and soccer balls and trudged up the hill to the fields where soccer camp took place. Artemis watched them go.

It was time to go to multi.

Artemis, Holly, and Juliet all started walking over to the Multisport camp tent where they were taking attendance. The counselor looked up at them.

"You guys must be Holly, Juliet, and Artemis." The counselor's eyes ran over Artemis and bulged slightly. He looked like he wanted to exclaim, "What the hell happened to this kid?" but restrained himself with a little difficulty.

"Welcome to camp," he continued when they nodded. "We hope you have the time of your life!" The counselor rolled his eyes. "I'm Drake. I'll be the counselor for your group. If you have a problem, please don't come to me with it. Go to the other counselors dealing with Multisport, like Doug or Mickey. They can help. Doug will be floating in and out all day. He often gets important sounding calls on his cell phone and has to rush off in the middle of a game. Mickey is the counselor for the younger groups at Multisport camp." Drake said this all in an extremely bored sounding voice.

"Sounds good to me. When's wrestling?" Juliet asked, twirling her hair around a finger.

Drake merely glanced at her and sighed. "We don't wrestle here. It's too dangerous. Along with field hockey and lacrosse, the kids here can't be trusted with the sticks. We learned that after one too many checking injuries. You guys don't take it personal though, right?" He checked to see if the kids were offended. They all shook their heads very quickly.

To Artemis, they did actually look very crazy. One of the kids was playing on his Gameboy complete with arm movements and sound effects. Another was trying to shimmy up the tent pole. Two other kids were trying to figure out who could hit each other harder without screaming, and one boy was actually foaming at the mouth.

Artemis didn't know whether or not it was toothpaste or rabies. He guessed rabies because of the quick breathing and bulging bloodshot eyes.

Artemis did not feel safe.

"Okay, now that we've got that established, we're going up to the courts to play a little basketball. Knockout, steal the bacon, basketball. Let's go." With that, Drake stood up and headed out of the tent. He went over to the side of the building and picked up a mesh bag full of basketballs.

The kids stood up gradually and drifted in the general direction that Drake was headed, occasionally tripping or giving out piggybacks or walking backwards. The walk to the basketball courts lasted about five minutes. It winded around the building that Artemis saw when he first got off the bus, and was uphill. After it was uphill, it started going downhill and wound to the left a little before the came to several basketball courts.

All at once, Holly exploded on Artemis. "Artemis!" she barked. "What the hell are you wearing? You need to lose the goggles. Now," she said, hands on her hips. Artemis clutched at his goggles.

"What if I get hit in the eye? My eyes need to be protected, Holly." Holly rolled her eyes.

"Artemis, if you wear those, you will get your head stuffed in the toilet in the locker room or whatever those stupid Mud Boys do to haze the weird ones. So I suggest you take them off and make yourself look a little less…" She looked down at his outfit and waved her hands vaguely at him, looking slightly lost. "Stupid," She finished painfully.

Artemis was not stupid! He never would be! "I do not look stupid!" he exclaimed, but he did take off the goggles. Holly snatched them away from him and threw them in a ditch. Artemis considered diving after them, but at this point they were at the courts and he figured it would be overkill.

When everyone arrived, Drake told everyone to sit down.

"Okay everyone!" He called. "We're going to play Knockout now. Does everyone know how to play? No? Okay. So. The first two people in line get basketballs. The first person in line shoots from the foul line. If they get it in, they give the ball to the third person in line and the second person shoots. If the first person doesn't get it in, the second person can shoot from the foul line. They both keep shooting until they get it in. The thing is, if the second person that shoots gets a basket before the first person, the first person is out. And so on. The last person who is still in wins. Obviously."

With that, they all lined up in front of a hoop. Artemis was before Holly but behind Juliet. He fully well knew that he was going to get out on his first try. And he was right. When it was Artemis's turn, he shot the ball but it missed the backboard by several feet and he had to get it. Juliet had swished the ball in the net on her first try from the foul line. He was out.

He threw the ball on the ground in frustration. It bounced back up and hit him in the face. He fell down flat on his back and groaned. That one would leave a mark.

"Hey, kid!" a chubby kid in a beret and sandals called. "Gimme the ball! NOW!" The kid shouted. Artemis tossed the ball at him. The kid caught it but threw Artemis a dirty look. Artemis wondered why, until he realized that his hesitation in giving the kid the ball had cost the boy his spot in the game. Artemis didn't feel too bad about it, it was just a game.

It seemed other people didn't exactly share his placid views on sports because the kid shuffled over to where Artemis was sitting on the ground and started jabbing Artemis's chest with his finger. "YOU MADE ME GET OUT. I AM NOT HAPPY ABOUT THAT. YOU WILL PAY WHEN WE PLAY FOOTBALL." The kid said this all in a crazy loud voice while still managing to talk, not shout. It was very confusing.

Artemis dwelled on this until he remembered which sport football was. It was the game with all the contact that people often got injured in. Artemis suppressed a groan as he got up and trudged over to the water bin on the plastic chair on the side of the courts.

Camp did not have a very promising start, Artemis thought as he watched a kid get knocked out of the game and promptly start punching the kid who got him out in the jaw until Drake intervened. Drake made the kid sit directly underneath the basketball hoop so the basketballs every time they went in the net would hit him.

Artemis could just feel the future bruises forming on his body as he thought about the upcoming week…

**Ah. *reads over work and frowns* This didn't come out like I wanted it to. :( It was supposed to be funnier. Ah, well, what are you gonna do? It was MY last day of sports camp today, so I'm pretty bummed about that. It was really fun. **

**So, are you guys gonna cheer me up with a nice review telling me how you didn't care that it wasn't as funny as it should have been? It would be pretty awesome if you did :D**

**REVIEWWWW!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey, people! Damn, I updated fast! :D I hope you guys enjoy this chapter, I enjoyed writing it a lot. THANKS TO EVERYONE THAT REVIEWED! YOU GUYS MADE MY DAY! **

**Replies:**

**ghgv: hi! Thanks for reviewing. I hope this one's funny enough for you, I worked hard on it. Oh and plus, your name you left your review with, ghgv, seems really familiar. Have you reviewed to any of my other stories?**

**ON WITH THE STORY! Enjoy! :D**

If you asked Artemis how his first day of sports camp was going, he would say that it was catastrophic and if he didn't know any better, he would say that the world was about to end.

It was that bad, and they'd only done one activity.

After the disastrous game of knockout, Drake announced that it was time for break. Everyone headed back up to the multisport tent. When they got there, everyone got water from the buckets. These three girls in Artemis's group went down to the field and started kicking around a soccer ball, and the rest of the kids sat at the picnic tables and tried not to pass out in the disgusting heat.

A new counselor came over to the tent and went over to Drake. The new guy introduced himself as Doug, the head counselor of Multisport. He was about 5'6, and looked like he was about to pass out. He had bulging muscles and was purple in the face. He waved his arms around crazily and screamed at the top of his lungs to get everyone's attention.

Not only did this get everyone's attention, but it also scared the crap out of every single person at multi. One kid was so startled he dropped his iTouch in his water cup.

"DAMN IT! THAT WAS THE FIFTH ITOUCH I BROKE THIS SUMMER, I'M NEVER GONNA BE ABLE TO GET ANOTHER ONE!" The kid shrieked at the top of his lungs, and broke into tears.

Doug's creative attention-grabbing technique also managed to scare the girl sitting next to Artemis so much that she had a spaz attack and slapped Artemis across the face as hard as she could. Artemis immediately put his hand on his slapped cheek and crumpled up his face.

"Oops!" the girl said. "Doug has his scary moments at the most inconvenient times, like when I'm sitting next to wimpy kids!" With this said, she skipped away. She was wearing a dress.

Artemis stared after her. Holly sat down where the girl had been sitting. "Did some five year old just call you a wimp?" She asked. Artemis nodded glumly.

"Yeah. And she was wearing a dress." Holly snorted.

"A dress? Okay, wow Arty." Holly called over to Juliet, who was all the way across the tent. "Hey, Juliet! Artemis just got dissed by five-year-old Dressgirl!"

Juliet looked up from what she was doing. "Ha! He totally had it coming." She glanced down at the thing in her hand. Holly's eyebrows drew together. She walked over to Juliet.

"What are you doing?" Holly asked. Juliet looked at her.

"I nicked this girl's iPod from soccer camp. I'm looking through her songs."

Holly stared. "Isn't that, oh, I don't know, illegal? Somewhat?"

Juliet giggled. "Of course it is, silly!" She patted Holly's head. "Don't worry though. She'll get it back eventually." Juliet resumed looking through the iPod until she heard a distant shriek coming from up where soccer camp was held. She nervously hid the iPod in her backpack and walked over to where Artemis was sitting so she could listen to what Doug was saying.

Doug wasn't saying, however. He was screaming.

"Alright!" He roared. The kids in the front row looked as though they had all just crapped their pants and were showered with spit. The spit was brown. Juliet saw this and nervously whispered to the kid next to her, who had introduced himself as Adam. Adam was a brown-haired eleven year old who was a genius at soccer.

"Is Doug on beaver tranquilizer?" Juliet asked Adam nervously. He looked at her and shook his head.

"No, I think it's just a crazy overdose of caffeine. And crack," he added as an afterthought. "Drake's the one on beaver tranquilizer." Adam nodded at Drake, who was obsessively sniffing his fingers and nibbling on a piece of random cheese. Juliet shivered in disgust and scooted closer to Adam.

"Don't the counselors scare you a little?" She asked him. He nodded.

"Well, yeah. But its not like I can tell my parents. Who's gonna believe their kid if they tell their parents that they have counselors on beaver tranquilizers and other questionable things?" Juliet nodded at his reasoning.

"You're right. I wouldn't believe my kid if he told me that." Adam's eyes got wide.

"You have a kid!" He exclaimed. "Moms usually don't come to sports camp! You should be on bed rest and getting plenty of vitamin C and A!"

Juliet laughed. "Slow down, Adam. No, I am not a mother. And anyway, when did you become Mr. Pregnancy?"

"Since my mom had ten kids after me." Juliet gaped.

"But you're only 11 years old!" She exclaimed. "Is that even possible?"

He looked at her solemnly. "Yes, in some countries." Juliet literally was speechless. She patted Adam's head and tried to listen to what Doug was saying.

Doug, it seemed, was having a panic attack while explaining the rules of Multisport camp. He was waving his arms around fanatically, jumping up and down in place, and his veins in his neck were popping out alarmingly. Artemis wondered if he should call the hospital and have this poor fellow knocked out for a few days so he could get his crap together.

"Okay, Multisport!" Doug thundered, probably shattering glass and causing avalanches somewhere. "I realize that it may be scary for you to be here if it's your first time coming to sports camp! But seeing as this camp is terribly run, you have nothing to fear! Just come to Mickey or me if you have any problems. Don't go to Drake, he's useless."

Everyone looked at Drake. He was softly singing 'Somewhere Over a Rainbow'. Everyone nodded in understanding. After they looked at Drake, they looked at Mickey where Doug was pointing. Mickey was a Guido who looked like he belonged on Jersey Shore. His name would have been "Scooter". He was frantically texting on his Blackberry and didn't look up at Doug or the campers.

Doug continued. "Anyway, there will be NO name calling at this camp! I would sit here listing the names that can't be used, but that would probably teach you all some names that you don't already know and that would be just horribly horrible. SO! Now that everything's cleared up, -" All of a sudden Doug stopped talking, because his phone rang.

Doug's ring tone was Justin Bieber's song "Baby". Everyone shook their heads. Doug pulled out his phone.

"Hello?" Pause. "WHATTHEHELL!" Pause. "OMG I'LL BE RIGHT THERE." With that, Doug snapped the phone shut and sprinted over to a big black Bentley in the parking lot and promptly laid rubber as his car squealed away, going ninety miles an hour in under ten seconds.

Drake stood up. "Okay, people." He yawned and then went on. "Since morning activities took longer than usual today because one particular bus came an hour late," He stopped again to glare at Holly, Juliet and Artemis, who all slid under the table to avoid being glared at. Adam waved at Juliet under the table. Drake continued. "We are going straight to swimming today."

All the kids cheered. Holly, Juliet, and Artemis shrugged. Drake started off towards the building and all the kids ran after him, screaming with delight and smashing each other playfully in the face with their backpacks.

Arty, Holly, and Juliet crawled out from underneath the picnic table and dusted themselves off. Juliet randomly looked up at soccer camp and groaned. Holly and Artemis followed her line of vision and came to stare at a girl that was running down the hill from soccer camp as fast as she could right at them, screaming battle cries and beating her chest with both fists.

Juliet gulped, grabbed Holly and Artemis, and sprinted into the building after Drake and the other campers. When they got inside, they all gasped for air.

Holly patted Artemis on the back for actually being able to somewhat keep up with them, then turned to Juliet.

"Why was some random soccer girl running at us like her sole aim in life was to single-handedly rip you apart limb from limb?"

Juliet gulped again and glanced at Holly and Artemis. "She was the girl I stole the iPod from. I have a feeling she's gonna kill me." Holly and Artemis nodded silently.

They parted ways at the locker rooms. Artemis went into the men's locker room and went into a stall. He quickly changed into his bathing suit and went to take a quick shower before getting into the pool. He wasn't allowed to go in otherwise. He grabbed his towel and went into the poolroom.

He tried to go over to the bleacher-like things on the left side of the room to where Juliet and Holly were already sitting, but a crazy-looking lady in rubber boots stopped him forcibly.

"PASSWORD!" The lady yelled. Artemis just stared at her. She giggled. "Just kidding, lad! But you have to go over there so you can pass your swim test before you go in the pool!"

Artemis looked over at the right side of the room and groaned. Over at the opposite side of the pool, about twenty little girls under the age of six sat giggling and shrieking. He was not going to go over there and sit on the bench.

Wait, there it was! The beginnings of one of his genius plans to get out of sports camp! Artemis grinned to himself. He was going to break out of sports camp! Now, all he needed to do was get out of the pool room and his swimming test…

***giggles* okay, this chapter cracked me up as I was writing it. For those of you who don't know me (which is most of you), I tend to make myself laugh. Sometimes it's not funny to anyone else but me, so if it isn't funny, pleaseplease tell me! If it is, tell me then too!**

**Tell me what you think about my story! It makes me squeal obnoxiously when I see that I've gotten a review. And I reply to everyone's reviews, so you'll at least feel appreciated! :) **

**And for those of you that are wondering and a little annoyed, I know there isn't much HollyxArty yet. I'm no good at writing romance, I'm sorry. Just stick with me anyway? *grins cheesily and hopefully* **

**REVIEWWWWWWW!**


	5. Chapter 5

**HI GUYS! **

**Hope you enjoy this chapter! THANKS TO ALL THAT REVIEWED! You guys make me happy! :) **

**Oh, and one thing before you start reading. I posted a rant about ****The Atlantis Complex****, so go read it! It's at the top of my profile, so it won't be hard to find. However, DON'T read it if you haven't yet read the book. It contains spoilers. Massive spoilage. **

**Anyways, on with the story! :D enjoy!**

Artemis, armed with the details of his newly concocted escape mission, walked away from the benches and over to where the counselors were lounging in beach chairs.

"Excuse me," Artemis started. "I am unable to take the swim test, as I am horribly incapacitated." Artemis was, however, not incapacitated, as you very well know. But the people there didn't know that.

The nicest lady there eyed him suspiciously. "Who's your counselor, kid?" Artemis stood up straighter and nodded at Drake.

"Drake is," He stated. The counselors all looked at each other and rolled their eyes simultaneously.

"Great!" A huge guy in a black T-shirt with knives on it thundered. "He got the useless counselor!"

They all glared at Drake, who slid down in his seat and picked his nose self-consciously. Artemis suppressed an eye roll and groan. Where did the camp find these people? 

Craigslist, he reasoned.

"Anyway," Artemis shouted. "I can't take the swimming test. I have a serious condition. I die when I touch water."

The counselors all scratched their heads. They had never heard of this particular malady before.

"That seems believable enough," one stated, looking around the group for reassurance. They all nodded.

"We believe you, young one. Now go run along to your group."

Artemis grinned to himself as he walked slowly down past the benches to where Holly, Juliet, and the rest of their group were sitting at the very end.

Now that he had successfully removed himself from the possibility of swimming in front of people, Artemis was feeling quite pleased with himself and was convinced that his plan to escape from camp was going to work.

That is, until he heard an extremely close and scary sounding battle shriek. All of a sudden, Artemis got trucked from behind and was unceremoniously thrown into the pool. The deep end, no less. Good thing treading water was common sense. The only catch was that he couldn't muster the strength to get himself out of the water.

Then Artemis noticed that people were laughing. He sighed. More people laughing. He might have to outlaw laughter. It would certainly make his camp experience easier.

Juliet was innocently talking to Holly about how they couldn't wait to see Justin Timberlake in concert when suddenly she felt the collar of her shirt being grabbed and she was hoisted up into the air. Without thinking, she jabbed three rigid fingers into her attacker's pressure point on their neck.

They let go of her collar with a small cry of pain and dropped onto the floor. Juliet looked at her opponent. It was the girl from soccer that had stolen she stole the iPod from!

"Oh, crap," Juliet thought sadly. She might die in the fight with this girl.

Juliet finally spared poor Artemis in the pool a glance.

"Hey Arty! What happened?" Artemis glared, then apprehension settled in his features.

"Uh, Juliet? I couldn't help but notice that you're about to get killed, so let's save this discussion for another time, okay?"

Juliet whirled around just in time for the girl to punch her straight in the face. Juliet gasped at the fact that anyone, let alone this girl, had managed to actually punch her in the face! Juliet did not go through overly extensive training in Eastern Asia for this! She grasped the girl's wrist and threw her upside down over her back and into the pool.

Unfortunately for Juliet, the girl had managed to get a grip on Juliet's wrist and she was pulled into the water with the girl.

By this time, the counselors had finally noticed something was going on.

"HEY!" The counselor that had stopped Artemis with the rubber boots screamed. "PEOPLE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE IN THE POOL YET! YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE BRACELETS YET! AND CATERINA, GET BACK TO SOCCER CAMP! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE! GO BACK TO SOCCER, CAT!" The lady had to be carted off in a stretcher because she suddenly fainted from overexertion. Which was confusing, because she never did anything except sit down and watch swim camp and make sure they didn't kill each other.

It isn't a well-known fact, but swim camp is vicious.

Once Juliet and the girl, Cat were in the pool, they resumed their fight. Since it was in the water, no one could really see what was happening because of the monstrous splashes they were causing.

They could, however, hear the battle. They heard screams, shouts, growls, scratches, punches, biting, grunts, shrieks, kicks, and the other general noises that arise during a scuffle.

Also, they could hear the strained conversation that took place during the water fight.

"Give me back my iPod, idiot!"

"Okay, I will if you stop trying to _maul_ me!"

"Not until I get my iPod back!"

"I can't give you it back until we get out of the pool, YOU'RE THE IDIOT!"

Artemis was up close and personal in the pool during this fight. It was making horribly big waves in the pool, and aside from the brief little stint during the run from the trolls with Holly, Artemis had never actually swam before.

Finally, after about 15 minutes of everybody just sitting there watching the fight and doing nothing about it (the counselors had quickly lost interest), Holly decided to take initiative. She grabbed Artemis's forearms and hoisted him out of the water.

She laid him down on the ground. He just laid there, thinking to himself. _I told the counselors I would die if touched the water, yet I was in there for 15 minutes and no one rescued me. They even forgot! I know it isn't true, but just think, what if it was?_

Artemis lay there, contemplating the safety of the camp while Holly jumped into the pool to break up the fight. First, she punched Juliet and Cat in the face at the same time. Then, she forced both of their heads underwater and held them there for 30 seconds. When she let them up, they had both forgotten that they were fighting.

"Now!" Holly started. "Get out of the pool. And don't go back in. Juliet, give Cat her iPod. Cat, please don't do anything else." With that, all three got out of the water.

As soon as they were out of the water, Juliet started rifling through her backpack for the iPod while Cat tapped her foot impatiently. Juliet's searching became more and more frantic as the seconds passed and Cat looked more and more agitated as the seconds passed.

"Where the hell is my iPod!" Cat screeched finally. Juliet dumped her backpack upside down so everything came out. "I don't know, it's not in here!"

Just as Cat was about to attack Juliet again, Holly quickly sprayed pepper spray in Cat's eyes. Cat clutched at her face and screamed. She ran out of the poolroom and out of the building.

Juliet and Artemis stared at Holly in dead silence along with the rest of the poolroom.

"Why the hell do you have pepper spray, Holly?" Juliet and Artemis asked her simultaneously in their best Shanaynay voices, complete with head movements and identical "wtf" expressions.

"Self defense, shut up!" Holly exclaimed, and then quickly sat down on the bleachers with her shoulders hunched and her arms crossed. Juliet and Arty shrugged and sat down beside her.

Artemis was extremely annoyed. His plan to escape from sports camp had been completely destroyed! He wasn't sure how much more camp he could take. And he had only been there for about an hour.

All of a sudden, Doug came bursting through the doors, screeching unintelligibly. "EXCUSE ME!" Doug roared. "WOULD ANYONE CARE TO EXPLAIN TO ME WHY CAT JUST RAN OUT OF THE BUILDING CLUTCHING AT HER EYES, WHICH WERE RED AND BULGING? SHE LOOKED CRAZED! I THOUGHT SHE HAD RABIES!" Doug paused.

"No offence to you, Rickey," Doug said apologetically. Rickey, the kid who Artemis had previously suspected had rabies, nodded his head. Artemis gulped and moved farther away from little rabid Rickey.

No one felt like answering Doug, so he left after ten minutes of standing in confused silence. After Doug left, the counselors told everyone to change back into their clothes because it was time for lunch.

Everyone thought this was a little weird, as no one had actually gone into the pool except Cat, Holly, Artemis, and Juliet.

When everyone finished lunch, in which they all ate tiny slices of pizza and gross, disgusting, creepy tuna salad sandwiches, they headed back out to the multisport camp tent.

After multisport sat underneath the tent for another half hour because Drake couldn't bring himself to stand up, he finally took charge and hoisted himself.

"Damn, I need a cane. Anyway!" Doug called for attention. "What game do you guys want to play now?

"I want to play dodge ball!"

"Soccer!"

"Soccer!"

"Soccer!"

"Baseball!"

"Yeah," Drake said. " That's a great idea. We'll play kickball." Ignoring everyone's requests of games to play and their cries of protest when they figured out that they had been shot down, Drake headed down to the fields. He called Mickey to get his group of the younger multisport kids. The two multisport groups would play kickball together.

The game did not go smoothly. More than once, Artemis missed the ball when he was kicking and his momentum brought him in the air and he landed flat on his ass. The only comfort that was brought to him was when one of the kids also missed the ball when they tried to kick it, but ended up landing flat on his face. Artemis had no idea how it even happened, but it definitely did.

But then, Mickey did something a bit too, ah, aggressive. The kids in the outfield, seeing that Mickey was up at bat, moved back several yards.

Artemis didn't move back, however. He wasn't supposed to. For some strange reason that was unknown to everyone, especially him, Artemis was positioned as first baseman. All he knew about playing first base was that it was important, and that he was probably going to fail and be killed by his rabid teammate, Rickey.

Now that Artemis thought about it, if he did fail, the outcome of his failure for him was entirely possible. He suppressed a shiver, despite the 95-degree heat wave.

Drake pitched the ball towards Mickey, who backed up a couple steps. When the ball was about ten feet away from him, Mickey took a few powerful steps forward and then his right foot swung in a solid arc and smashed the ball far into right field, behind first plate.

The kid playing right field dove for the ball but missed and it bounced away from him. Mickey, who had waited at home plate to see if it was going to be caught, then started sprinting towards Artemis, who was concentrating on trying to catch the ball when it came to him. The kid finally got the ball and threw it at Artemis, who just managed to grasp it in his fingers and catch it! He stepped on the base and Mickey was out!

Which was the precise moment when all hell broke loose.

All at once Artemis was pretty sure the entire world had exploded and it was snowing colorful snowflakes as he was being slammed with a sledgehammer on all parts of his body. He decided it was not the most pleasant experience he had ever had. In fact, it was probably the worst.

In a last-ditch attempt to get on first base to stay on the field, Mickey had taken a flying leap and dove headfirst for first base. Unfortunately, Mickey dove too high, and instead crashed head-on into Artemis.

Artemis, as a result of being thoroughly decked, crashed onto the ground on his shoulder. It didn't help at all that Mickey decided that it would be a good to land directly on top of Artemis.

Hence, the sledgehammers and colorful snowflakes. Pain.

Artemis was certain that, in the back of his head, he could hear the other little kids in the game screaming, "HE'S DEAD!"

Mickey immediately got up off of Artemis, picked him up, and stood him on his feet. Artemis had a dazed look on his face. Mickey slapped him so he would be more alert. Artemis spluttered at the sudden pain in his cheek in addition to the pain all over his body (especially his shoulder).

Mickey bent down so he was almost at Artemis's level but kind of stood next to Artemis, like they were in a huddle, and didn't face Artemis's face. It was a very peculiar situation.

"Artemis," Mickey whispered. "Are you okay?" Artemis nodded.

"You're not going to tell your parents about this, right? This will be our little secret, right? Just us will know about this?" Artemis nodded, then thought for a second. Mickey's choice of words was a little sketchy. Artemis made a mental note to never go near Mickey, ever, ever again.

Artemis still felt proud that he had caught the ball and gotten a counselor out. He hoped he could do it again, just that next time it wouldn't be as painful.

He thought about this, and smiled as he walked back to the pitch, when his teammates slapped him high fives and patted him on the back. It was a good feeling, indeed.

**UGH! This chapter didn't come out right! I didn't have a funny day so I couldn't write funny. Boo. Oh well, I hope you enjoyed it anyways! :D Tell me what you thought about this chapter! Was It funny, was it too weird, did it suck, was it annoying, I want to know! **

**Oh, and go read the rant on my profile. Don't forget!**

**REVIEWWWWW! :D thanks for reading!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Hey guys! The author's note and everything is down at the bottom, along with an important message so please read it!**

When everyone got up to the tent, they all sat down at the picnic tables in the shade and tried not to pass out in the stifling heat.

Holly walked over to Artemis and sat down next to him quickly before she collapsed of heat exhaustion. Artemis looked up and smiled at her.

"Hello, Holly," he said. Holly smiled tiredly back at him.

"Hey, Arty. Congratulations on your catch in our game just now! It looks like you finally made people realize that you're not a _complete _dork, idiot, nerd, and altogether weirdo!" Despite the backhanded compliment/insult, Artemis felt himself flushing under the praise.

He looked up at Holly, meaning to say thanks and telling her that she too had done well in the games, he accidentally, in his nervousness, said, "Thanks, Holly. You aren't completely awful at sports like I thought you would be, too!"

Artemis had no idea where the words had come from. He covered his mouth with his hand hurriedly and his eyes bulged. Holly gaped at him, and then her expression slowly turned into anger.

"I am SO sorry Holly, I have no idea where that came from!" Artemis exclaimed apologetically.

Holly shot him a mean and disgusted look. "Why did I even bother coming to sports camp to keep you company and make sure you didn't completely fail at life? I really have no idea at the moment." With that said, Holly stalked off to go sit next to a little blond six year old boy. The boy managed to be cute and ugly at the same time, a feat that Artemis had no idea how it had been managed.

When Holly left, Artemis dropped his head into his hands. Why the hell did I say that to Holly? He asked himself. When Juliet came over and asked him the same thing, he had no answer for her.

He had felt something in his stomach when Holly gave him the compliment, something that was foreign to him and something he had had no idea how to react to.

Artemis was so caught up in his confusing thoughts that he barely even reacted when Rabid Rickey threw up almost on his shoes. Which was certainly saying something.

Artemis decided that the feelings he had felt in the pit of his stomach when he was around Holly had to be investigated. And they would be, as soon as he got home and onto his computer…

**Yes, yes, I know. *cringes* I'm aware that this chapter sux. But I needed a small filler chapter because I'm going away for about a week and won't be able to update until next Thursday or Friday. :( So sorry about that, and I promise the next chapter will be a good one!**

**It was so short and stupid and irrelevant because the only reason I wrote this chapter was to be able to tell you that I wouldn't be updating for a few days. So, I decided to put in the beginnings of HollyxArty, even though Artemis ruins it x(**

**I'm a little nervous about writing the HollyxArty, so tell me how it was.**

**Thanks for reading! :D REVIEWWW!**


	7. Chapter 7

**HI GUYS! I'm back from my trip! Which was a lot lot lot of fun, bee tee dubs. **

**Thanks to all that reviewed! You guys really do make me happy :)**

**SO! On my trip, I tie dyed like twenty shirts with my aunt, uncle, grandma, and cousin. It was soooooo much fun! Anyone who doesn't think tie dying is fun clearly doesn't know how to have a good time. SO anyway, I got my hands all blue from the dye and so now I'm part Smurf, yaaaaay! ( I really don't think that's a good thing, crap.) Having blue fingers makes it very scary to put in and take out contact lenses; I'll have you know. Just for the heads up, in case you were wondering (which you totally were). **

**Also, I was at Barnes and Nobles the other day, and while helping my cousin pick out a book, I noticed that that there was the Dr. Seuss book called ****One fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish****, except that it said "Party Edition" on the cover in gold letters. I'm not sure how a Dr. Seuss book can partay, but whatever floats your boat, I guess. **

**Anyways, on with the chapter! Enjoy! :D**

After that painful break, Drake stood up to make an announcement.

"Alright, Multisport!" Drake screamed. A few campers looked over at him. He yawned. "We're gonna try something new. Everyone up for a game of hockey?"

All the kids screamed their approval. Drake grinned, pleased with himself.

Artemis, however, was not as happy to be playing hockey. He had read about hockey, and it did not seem like a game that people played leisurely. It seemed like a game that people played to settle important issues, like, who gets Alaska.

He had read about the hockey players who only had one tooth left. He thought about the YouTube video he had seen a while ago called "End of ze World", and he remembered the hockey player in it. Dead on the ground with a leg chopped off.

Yeah, Artemis was really looking forward to this game of hockey!

Drake waved his arms towards the building. "Everyone, let's go get the equipment!"

A slightly chubby kid in a muscle shirt named Stalker said, "What's equipment?"

Drake chuckled and shook his head. "It scares me, Stalker, that you can come to sports camp for multiple weeks at a time for a few consecutive years and NOT know what equipment is. It just makes me a little nervous for your mental health."

At this, Stalker looked a little put out but followed Drake and the rest of the kids to the building.

Artemis fell into step with Holly and Juliet. Holly kept shooting him evil looks and Juliet kept nervously looking over shoulder for Cat. Artemis chose this opportunity to really talk to Holly.

"Look, Holly," He began. Holly looked scornfully at him. "I'm sorry for what I said before, I really didn't mean it. Please forgive me." Holly stared at him for a few more seconds before dropping her angry face. She took his hand.

"It's okay, Artemis. I know you're not the greatest person at social interaction." Artemis accepted this with a nod.

He was happy with this development for a few seconds before thinking to himself, _Oh my god, Holly is holding my hand! Oh wait, I sound like a lovesick 14 year old. Crap. _

They must have realized that Holly was still holding his hand at the same time because they let go of each other very fast, both not looking at the other.

Juliet, not realizing the little moment that just went on right next to her, turned to the other two. "I wonder if that kid's real name is Stalker."

Both Artemis and Holly shrugged. Juliet decided they were being boring and ran to catch up with Stalker.

Juliet fell into step beside him. "So, is your name really Stalker?" He looked up at her.

"Yeah, Stalker H. McFinden!" he said, sounding confused. "Why?"

Juliet was taken aback. "Honey, do you know what a stalker is?" He nodded proudly.

"Yep! It's a person who never gives up on what they want and their dreams. They just keep going even when things are tough. That's what my mom told me." He smiled sweetly.

"Juliet blew out her breath. "This kid's mom has a way with euphemisms," she muttered.

"What?" Stalker asked.

"Nothing!" Juliet said, then ran back to walk with Holly and Artemis. They looked strangely awkward with each other, but Juliet paid it no attention.

When they finally reached the building, Drake called everyone into order and made them stand in a single line side by side, like in the military.

"Okay guys!" Drake called, clapping his hands together in a get-up-and-go kind of way. "We're gonna need everyone to carry something, so get ready to lift heavy stuff!" He walked towards them, but they could all hear him mumble to himself, "That was horrible. I need to work on my motivation speeches."

Half-hour later, all the kids were carrying hockey equipment out to the fields. Artemis found himself holding two pairs of roller blades. Holly was carrying shoulder pads, and Juliet had blackmailed a poor 15 year old who had a crush on her to carry her equipment, which had been both goals. Poor guy.

When Multisport got back underneath the tent, Drake once more called for attention.

"Okay guys! Put on the equipment and then meet me down at the field." He walked away towards the field and started juggling a soccer ball.

It was complete chaos for the next 20 minutes. Kids were trying to put the skates and ending up wacking others in the face, people were having sword fights with the hockey sticks, kids were trying to light the pads on fire, and Rabid Rickey was threatening those actually trying to put on the equipment.

"If you think you'll get away with spoofing Bugs Bunny, you're wrong!" He squeaked and foamed at the mouth. As usual, no one knew what he was talking about.

When everyone finally got the equipment on, about an hour later, everyone started down the hill to where Josh was lying on the ground, probably passed out from the heat.

Most of the kids were ready to pass out themselves in all the heavy padding and skates.

About half of multisport were still trying to have hockey stick wars. One kid got hit in the face and his nose broke. He had to be carted off by the lunch lady, who brought him to the nurse's office.

When everyone managed to roll down the hill in their skates (some kids simply rolled down on their bodies; it was quicker anyway) Drake got up blearily.

All the kids glared at Drake. He looked confused as to why. He started making teams. Artemis and Juliet were on a team with Adam, Stalker, and a bunch of other kids including the kid who had a crush on Juliet. He kept sending her pining looks. Holly was on a team with Rabid Rickey, a cute little kid named Geoff, Dressgirl, and a bunch of others.

When they managed to get to either side of the field and Drake had lugged over the goals and set them up, Drake threw the puck in the middle of the field.

"Play ball!" he exclaimed. No one moved.

"What's wrong?" Drake asked.

"You're a complete idiot, that's what happened. We can't play hockey _on the grass_ in skates, genius." Juliet scowled. Drake scratched his head, and then looked bummed out.

"Well, I guess that wasn't a very well thought-out plan. Crap." Everyone nodded angrily.

"Play anyway!" All the kids rolled their eyes, but started moving around anyway. Holly, who had been trained to deal in this kind of heat, quickly moved towards the ball. Juliet had also been trained to handle this. In a second, however, Holly had scored.

Juliet scowled again. Artemis rolled towards her, fell flat on his ass, got back up again, and finished rolling over to Juliet. "It's okay Juliet. We'll beat them into the ground soon enough." Juliet rolled her eyes.

This went on for a while. Once, Artemis tried to block a goal and ended up being _smashed_ in the face by a rogue hockey stick. The kid followed up the assault with an "Oops!" and a goal. The kid rolled off, hooting like an owl. It didn't actually seem like a victorious celebration though, just an impersonation of an animal.

Another time, Artemis thought he'd try to be useful and score a goal for their team. He had successfully gotten the puck from Dressgirl and was traveling up the field towards the goal (albeit awkwardly and slowly). Holly, not wanting Artemis to have more satisfaction that came with winning in sports, moved to block him.

However, she moved too quickly and her stick came up too high. It all happened very fast. For about 2 seconds, life for Artemis was a blur of sticks and rolling and Holly and pain.

Turns out Holly had knocked out his two front teeth!

Charming, he thought blithely. Oddly enough, he didn't even let out a cry of pain, a whimper, or any other sign of physical discomfort. Holly wouldn't have even noticed anything was wrong except for the fact that Artemis hadn't gotten up and was currently crawling around on the grass, scrabbling through the grass and periodically spitting out mouthfuls of blood.

Holly immediately dropped to his side. She grabbed his chin and turned his face towards hers. She caught sight of the white face, dark blue eyes, and the pupils dilated with pain. Artemis wrenched his chin out of her grip and spat out another mouthful of blood.

"Oh my god!" Holly exclaimed, slightly hysterically. "Artemis, what happened!" Artemis looked back at her, finally stopping his frantic searching. He was holding something tightly in his right hand, which he had ripped out of the protective gloves immediately as he had gone down.

"You 'ocked ou' my thwo fron' 'eeth," Artemis tried to say, his words messed up because of his lack of front teeth. Holly gasped loudly and started to reach for him and say something when she was suddenly interrupted by an extremely loud voice. Doug. Holly groaned, not this guy again!

"WHAT IN HELL IS GOING ON HERE, DRAKE? ANY KIND OF HOCKEY AND LACROSSE ARE NOT ALLOWED AT MULTISPORT BECAUSE OF THE VIOLENT TENDENCIES THAT THE KIDS SHOW! REMEMBER LAST YEAR WHEN A KID BROKE ANOTHER KID'S COLLARBONE WHILE TRYING TO GET THE BALL IN LACROSSE? THE KID'S STILL IN A NECK BRACE! AND WE WERE ALMOST SUED!"

Doug's screamed speech had little effect on Drake, as Drake was once again passed out in the blistering heat, along with half of the kids at multisport. Doug scream-sighed and looked over at Artemis.

"OH MY GOD, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU!" YOU NEED TO GO TO THE NURSES OFFICE!" Doug shrieked.

Before he could haul Artemis off to the nurse, Juliet stepped in. "You know what Doug? That sounds great, but I think we're just gonna leave early." Ignoring Doug's hollers of protest, Juliet, Artemis and Holly started back up to the multisport tent. Juliet quickly called Butler and he was on his way to pick them up already.

They all got all their equipment off, and Holly decided to look at Artemis's teeth again.

She watched as he spat out yet another mouthful of blood. She was amazed that he hadn't complained about it yet. She watched him as he went over to the water container, washed out his mouth, and sat back down.

"Artemis, let me see," She ordered. He looked up at her, and opened his mouth. There was a huge gap where his two front teeth had once been.

"Now, smile," Holly said. He grimaced at her, and then smiled. Strangely enough, he looked younger with his smile absent of teeth. He looks cute like that, Holly thought, and then shook herself mentally. She did not just think that.

"I' 'hurths," said Artemis. Juliet looked at him sympathetically. Holly ran her hand down his arm.

"I'm gonna try to heal them for you, Artemis. I'm so sorry about this, I can't believe I did that!" Artemis once again smiled reassuringly at her, even though all the smiling must have hurt _a lot_.

Holly once again stared at him, looking at the unexpected sweetness of the appearance of the smile. Artemis must have been one hell of an adorable child, she thought. If he had smiled at all when he was a kid.

"'On't worry a'outh ith, 'Olly," Artemis tried to say.

After that, they sat in silence until Butler came and picked them up.

**Okay, I know that wasn't as funny as usual, so sue me. :S but there was HxA, so yay! :D I hope you guys enjoyed that. **

**By the way, do any of you actually read the author's notes? Just out of curiosity, cuz they're so much fun to write lol.**

**Thanks for reading, REVIEWWWW!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey, everyone! What's up! Nuthin really with me.**

**THANKS, REVIEWERS! YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME! **

**Sooo, yeah, not really much to talk about this chapter. Oh, I'm going to yoga camp this week with my friend! We went to our first class today. It was surprisingly hard. Especially** **the mountain pose, the one where you just stand there and don't move? Hardest one of all. **

**I swear to you. Especially if you're extremely hyper, and you're there with your equally hyper best friend.**

**I think my favorite part was when the teacher randomly took out balls for us to play catch with (yes I'm aware I was at yoga camp, don't ask why we were playing catch) and I threw it really hard and it hit my best friend in the face :D but then she threw it back at me and it hit me really hard in the face. **

**Oh well, I deserved it. :) she actually has a fanfiction! Her name on fanfiction name is 'Chatters', go on my profile and read her story! It's a hilarious spoof of Harry potter and Twilight crossover. Go read it.**

**Now! Answers to anonymous reviews:**

**Carissa: hey, don't sue me! I wrote more, hope you enjoy it! :D**

**A Frog Named Stevie Wonder: Actually, I'm pretty sure it IS a humor story. But I'm glad you think it's funny :D you should get an account name with that though by the way; a frog named stevie wonder. That's pretty creative, I like it :)**

**Now, onto the chapter! Enjoy :)**

They sat there for about another half hour, when the huge black Range Rover pulled up in the bus circle and Butler stepped out of the car.

Butler was, in a word, a badass. The picture of him walking out of the car was this: a 6'7 Eurasian man with a shaved bald head and aviator sunglasses in a black tuxedo. The manservant was the epitome of what all bodyguards and badasses should look like.

Exactly like Vin Diesel.

Butler spotted them sitting underneath the tent and started walking over to them at a brisk pace. An annoying-looking counselor hurried over and stood in front of Butler, blocking his path. The counselor had crazy long curly hair tied back in a low ponytail, and he wore painfully round glasses, kind of like Harry Potter's. But unlike Harry Potter, the guy couldn't pull off the look.

"Excuse me, mister," the counselor squeaked uncertainly. "You aren't allowed to come on the camp grounds-," The counselor abruptly stopped talking as Butler took a step forward.

By now, Butler was about six inches away from the scrawny counselor. He had to look almost straight up to see Butler's face. He visibly gulped.

Behind his sunglasses, Butler opened his eyes wide, so that he had a slightly crazy look on his face, a little like that of a serial killer. He slowly lifted up his hand and pulled off his aviators. He locked eyes with the counselor. The counselor was sweating with fear by now.

Butler put a massive hand on the guy's chest and pushed him gently. The counselor fell to the ground in shock. Butler stood over him and looked down, then walked away. The guy didn't get up.

Artemis, Holly, and Juliet all chuckled as they saw the little exchange. Well, Holly and Juliet did, it hurt Artemis too much to laugh.

Butler continued hurrying over to them. When he saw the dark stains of blood down Artemis's shirt and on the ground in front of him, his eyes widened visibly (they had gone back to normal when he walked away from the guy) and he doubled his pace.

Holly, Juliet, and Artemis all stood up from the bench as Butler approached them. As soon as Butler was in earshot, he spoke to them.

"Artemis, what happened?" Butler asked, frantic. He finally arrived at where they were standing. He nodded greetings to Holly and his sister, and they said hi back to him.

Butler turned his full attention to Artemis now. Artemis answered him as well as he could.

"Uh, my theeth goth 'ocke' outh whe' we were p'ayi'g hockey," Artemis stuttered and spluttered though his explanation. Butler looked mildly confused at this.

"He's trying to say, 'My teeth got knocked out when we were playing hockey'," Juliet supplied, shooting concerned glances at Artemis. He seemed affronted at having to be translated.

Butler's mouth tightened into a thin line. "I'm assuming you have the teeth, right?" he asked Artemis, ignoring Juliet as she muttered, "When you assume, you make an ass out of u and me."

Artemis nodded and showed Butler his two front teeth in his palm. Butler watched as he spit out another mouthful of blood. He took Artemis's arm and brought him over to the water tank. He lifted up the entire tank and told Artemis to drink out of the bottom.

When Artemis was finished, Butler made him open his mouth so he could see the gums where the teeth had been. The gums were red and raw and still bleeding. Butler sighed as he gazed at them. He laid his hands on Artemis's shoulders.

"You're going to have to get medical help," Butler remarked, as though it wasn't painfully obvious. "Let's go."

Thy headed to the Range Rover and all climbed in. The three campers climbed into the back of the Range Rover while Butler got into the driver's seat. They were about to drive off when Rabid Rickey suddenly appeared out of nowhere and hopped into the car.

Holly and Juliet both screamed, and Artemis jumped. They all scooted as far away from Rickey as they could in the backseat, while Rickey looked at them with pleading bloodshot eyes.

Butler, meanwhile, who was just about to start driving away, slammed on the brakes (even though they hadn't been moving at all) and narrowly avoided crashing into a tree (which is a lie).

"WHAT?" Butler shouted, confused and startled. No one answered. He looked behind him and saw a little young kid that looked very, um, not normal. Well, the kid looked normal enough, he might have even been cute, with his soft brown hair and green eyes, if not for the bloodshot eyes and foam at the mouth and crazed look in his eyes.

"Rickey!" Holly exclaimed, still trying to flatten herself against Artemis in an attempt to get as far away as possible from Rickey. This caused her stomach to flutter for unknown reasons, but she pushed the thought away.

"What are you doing in this car? You have to get out, right now," Juliet ordered. Rickey opened his eyes very wide and adopted a pleading look that was actually adorable despite his red eyes and mouth.

"But, girl," Rickey started, before Juliet stopped him. "I'm Juliet, and this is Holly and Artemis." 

Rickey nodded and continued. "I need to get out of this place. I feel like the kids here are going to kill me and I need to leave! I think I'm sick," Rickey whined. Butler rubbed the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"Look, kid," Butler started. "I realize that you look and feel sick, but we have kind of an emergency situation in the car with us, so it would be really great if you would kindly step out of the car."

At this, Rickey pouted and whimpered. At that point, Artemis suddenly threw open the car and forced his head outside the car. He was violently sick onto the street for a few minutes. Butler immediately got out of the car to assist him and held onto Artemis's shoulder, as he was sick. Butler felt badly for his young charge as he saw the throw up was mostly red, from the amount of blood he had swallowed before he started spitting it out.

When Artemis was done, Butler took an ice pack out of the glove compartment and gave it to Artemis to put on his forehead. He also gave him a water bottle to drink and rise out his mouth with.

Artemis looked sheepishly at Holly, Juliet, and Rickey, and dropped his eyes to the floor.

"Sorry abouth thath, guys," Artemis apologized. They all nodded and said they understood, though they all avoided looking at the vomit. Butler walked around to the other side of the car and picked Rickey up off the car seat and set him down on the sidewalk.

"Stay," Butler growled at Rickey, and got into the driver's seat and quickly drove off, leaving Rickey all alone on the sidewalk.

**Okay guys, I'm aware that this chapter is beyond horrible (no artyxholly, no humor) and I apologize. I just have a little bit of writer's block, (curse writer's block! *shakes fist*) and can't seem to get through it so this is a filler chapter.**

**I know it's super bad, but I'm sorry. The next chapter will be better, I promise! :)**

**Thanks for reading! I know this chapter isn't really good enough to review for, but it would make me really happy if you did and gave me some ideas. :D**


	9. Chapter 9

**What's up, guys! How y'all doin?**

**THANKS TO ALL THAT REVIEWED! 81 REVIEWS! *beams vivaciously* I am so happy! Excited!**

**SO! I was sad before because I was reading ****Farewell to Manzanar**** because I have to read it for school, and that was depressing the hell out of me so I decided to update!**

**Now another thing: I love this song I recently heard for the first time. It's called 'Never Say Never ft. Jaden Smith' by Justin Bieber. Yes, I know, we all hate Justin Bieber and want him to die a horrible death. But just give this song a chance, it's really good! Tell me what you think of it!**

**Answers to reviews!:**

**Readergirl99: Thanks for being understanding: D I hope you like this one!**

**I eat for pleasure: First things first: I agree wholeheartedly with your name. and you'll just have to see if Rickey makes another appearance! :) Yep, I did read t****he Atlantis Complex**** already. I posted a rant on my profile about it, go read it if you like. Thanks for reviewing!**

**Mazzer 2k9: Thanks! Glad you liked it :D**

**Treblecleff123: thanks. I hope this chapter has enough complex words for your liking. And bout Artemis, that'll come soon. All in good time. Thanks for reviewing!**

**Onto the actual story! Enjoy :)**

Where it had taken the bus driver on the way to camp an hour to get to their destination, it took Butler 30 minutes to get to Fowl Manor. Basically, they never went slower than 90 miles an hour. Butler knew all the back roads. And all the policemen.

When they pulled into the long driveway of Fowl Manor, Artemis, Holly, and Juliet all staggered out of the car and onto the grass. They had all been in a vehicle moving that fast, even faster in fact, but not in a car. Usually it was in a plane or pod or something that wasn't a car. The author isn't feeling creative with thinking of fast vehicles right now.

Butler calmly but quickly got out of the car and rush/walked in front of the car over to the three. He was about to ask Artemis how he was when they all heard something like groaning.

Butler immediately took his AK-47 out of his tuxedo (its outline under his suit had remarkably gone unnoticed by everyone) and approached the back of the car where the sounds were coming from.

Butler crept silently up the side of the car and threw himself into clear view of behind the vehicle. And there was Rabid Rickey in all his rabid glory, violently throwing up in Fowl Manor's flower garden.

Growling and stuffing his gun back in his jacket, Butler walked over to Rickey who was just finishing. He hoisted Rickey off his feet and into midair and carried him over to where Artemis, Holly, and Juliet were situated. Rickey squeaked in surprise when he felt himself being lifted.

The three of them, upon seeing Rickey, dropped their jaws involuntarily and gaped at Rickey. A dribble of red drool escaped Artemis's mouth. Rickey giggled when he saw this, and Artemis flushed and wiped it away, closing his mouth and glaring at Rickey. Holly was the first to speak.

"How-," she began, and then stopped. Everyone was dumbfounded except for Butler, who was just plain pissed off.

Butler stood over Rickey, drawing himself up to his full, impressive, intimidating height, and glowered at the kid.

"What are you doing here?" Butler asked sharply. "How did you manage to follow us home?"

Rickey seeing to be trying to curl in on himself, and shrank a couple inches as he hunched in fear. "I had to get away from there. If I stayed there any longer they were going to give me shots and tests to see if I really have rabies. The nurse, Z, would have killed me. And I just latched myself onto the back of the car. It was pretty scary and I get motion sick, so I just threw up. Sorry about that."

With that, Rickey promptly turned green once again and proceeded to immediately throw up all over the grass right in front of them. Holly, Juliet, and Artemis turned away.

Juliet turned red and said, "I feel like everyone just loves throwing up today," and she glared at Artemis.

He blushed and looked away. Rickey ran over to Artemis and grabbed his hand.

"Hey, Artemis!" Rickey squealed, wiping his mouth with his free hand. Artemis wrenched his hand out of Rickey's surprisingly strong grip. "We can be throw up buddies since we both threw up today!"

"_Rickey, you mathe me throp my theeth!" _Artemis yelled. Turns out Rickey had grabbed the hand that Artemis was holding his front teeth in, and the teeth had been forced from his hand when Artemis ripped his hand away.

For the second time that day, Artemis frantically scrabbled through the grass trying to find his lost teeth. This time, Holly, Butler, and Juliet were also on the ground, looking for the teeth too. Rickey tried to join in the hunt, but Juliet pushed him away roughly and he landed several feet away from them. Unnoticed by everyone, Rickey ran into the huge backyard and disappeared.

Apparently Artemis's teeth had had a horrible day as well, because it seemed as though they had made it their personal quest to get as far away from Artemis as they could to escape any more of the humiliation that Artemis was used to receiving by no from today. They hadn't fallen underneath Artemis's hands.

It was as though the teeth had disappeared off the face of the earth. After ten more minutes of searching, Holly found one of Artemis's teeth.

She picked it up gingerly, holding it between her forefinger and thumb. She seemed like she was trying to touch it as little as possible, and her face was scrunched up in what looked like disgust.

"Ugh. Found one," Holly said loudly. She held out the tooth to Artemis, whose face lit up like a five year olds in that adorable new gapped smile of his, and stretched his hand out. Holly dropped the tooth in his hand, and he studied it. Holly's stomach gave another pleasurable squirm when he smiled.

"Thakth, 'Olly!" Artemis studied it for a few seconds, and then spoke again. "Ith theemth thath 'Olly founth my lefth thooth." Holly didn't see how which tooth went on which side was important, but figured it would make a difference when the teeth were back in the mouth.

When they finally found the second tooth, (found by Butler with the metal detector. When Artemis was later interrogated about why this was possible, he refused to elaborate on anything, only saying vaguely that his teeth were slightly different than most people's.) everyone went inside. Rickey was forgotten.

Once inside, Artemis put the teeth in a special container and placed the container in the freezer. Meanwhile, Butler called the hospital to see if a surgeon could perform immediate oral surgery on Artemis at Fowl Manor.

He was told no, but then he made some threatening statements.

Someone from the hospital was on their way immediately.

In the meantime, Artemis was told to lie on the couch holding ice in a cloth on his mouth and trying to stop the bleeding.

At last, the doorbell rang and Butler answered the door after checking the security cameras to make sure it was really the doctor and not the Irish Mafia. Or any other Mafia, for that matter.

Holly went upstairs to escape the observation of the surgeon. On her way down the upstairs hall to the upper lounge, the passed some framed photographs of small children. Wait, she thought. Is that…?

Meanwhile, the surgeon told Artemis to lie down in the kitchen table instead so he would have room to work on Artemis from both sides. They placed down a cushion for Artemis to lie on during the surgery, as he was shooting disdainful looks at the tabletop where he was being told he was about to have surgery on.

Butler took the teeth out of the freezer and handed the container to the surgeon. The surgeon asked Artemis if he knew which tooth was right and left. Artemis nodded and pointed to the right tooth and then to the right side of his mouth. He did the same with his left tooth. The surgeon nodded and placed each tooth on its respective side of the table.

The first thing the surgeon did was cauterize the gap where Artemis's teeth used to be. This stopped the bleeding and chance of infection, although it did burn and sting. Artemis was then shot with Novocain and felt nothing more.

Holly gazed at the pictures on the wall and gaped. This couldn't be Artemis! It just wasn't possible! But there it was.

One of the pictures displayed a little dark haired boy, and a man that was clearly Butler, at the park. The little boy was on the top of a slide, about to slide down. Butler was standing next to the little boy on the ground, but his head still managed to be next to the boy's head. Holly studied the little boy's face. Holly had wondered if Artemis looked like his toddler self with his teeth knocked out. He didn't.

Well, he did, to a certain degree. The little boy was obviously Artemis, but with a few changes (which if they hadn't been there, there would have been a problem). In the picture, Artemis's face was lit up with laughter and happiness. His dark cerulean eyes were reflecting the sunlight, making them appear like pools of tropical ocean water. He had a round, dimpled face, and his two front teeth were missing. His dark hair was long for a boy; it went down past his ears and hung in his vibrant eyes.

Artemis had been a gorgeous baby. There was no denying it.

Holly scrutinized the picture for a few more minutes then continued on her way to the upper lounge, riveted on what she had just seen. It seemed like Artemis had once been a happy, carefree toddler like all babies should be. And for that, Holly was happy for him.

Finally, the surgery was finished. Artemis jumped off the table and ran to the bathroom, eager to see that his teeth looked normal. Sure, they hurt like hell but that didn't matter yet. All that mattered was that his teeth were properly set. He peered at his reflection and stared at his teeth. They seemed to be as they were before.

He walked back to where Butler was paying the surgeon, grinning.

"Thanks!" Artemis exclaimed. The surgeon looked at him, then looked at Butler nervously. Butler nodded.

"Your welcome," the surgeon said. "Just don't eat hard foods for a week and you'll be fine. And no more horseplay!" Artemis tried to explain that he'd been at sports camp and it wasn't his fault, but the surgeon cut him off.

"That's what they all say. Anyway, I really must be going." And with that, the surgeon hurried out the door.

Artemis turned to Butler. "How do my teeth look?" asked Artemis, although he already knew the answer.

Butler clapped him hard on the shoulder. "They look perfect. Don't worry about it. Anyway, you're going back to sports camp tomorrow, so you should rest."

Artemis nodded and turned to go upstairs, when suddenly a very ugly smell permeated the atmosphere.

Artemis hurriedly plugged his nose. "What the hell is that smell!" he asked Butler, scandalized. Butler just walked past him and shook the hand of Mulch Diggums, who had just appeared in their kitchen, holding the collar of a very agitated-looking Rabid Rickey.

**WHOO! Cliffhanger! *rolls eyes* it's not much of a cliffhanger, but whatever. I know AGAIN no funny but it's coming I promise! **

**Hoped you liked this chapter, review and tell me what you think :DDD**

**REVIEWWWW! :)**


	10. Chapter 10

**Heyyy guys! :) What goes on? Anywaysies, NEWSFLASH! My story, "The Beast Within", was deleted the other day but it's back up again, so go read it and review! I think it's the best story I've written so far. Just letting you guyses know!**

**Oh, and my poll on my profile! I think many of you will be happy to know that Artemis Fowl has taken a commanding lead as the hottest guy, but what's happened to Remus Lupin? Sirius Black! Guys, go vote! *shoos people towards profile to vote* VOTE! VOTE!**

**Replies to anonymous reviews:**

**Cheeseisthemeaningoflife: yep! There will be more HollyxArty, don't worry! :) wasn't sports camp so much fun? Ahh, soccer camp. At the camp I went to, there are little kids at the soccer camp that are beast at soccer! But I'm sorry to hear that your bro broke his arm! You know what they say, though. Soccer camp's insane. Thanks for reviewing! **

**A person: thanks! And yeah, thank you *flips hair over shoulder* and in case anyone was wondering, yes, blondes really do have more fun. :D lol no, but yeah Padfoot's awesome. So is Moony and Prongsie! :DDDD love them. **

**Mazzer 2k9: sorry :) I'm glad to hear it though. Thanks for reviewing!**

**Onto the chapter! Enjoy! :D**

"Hey, Butler and angsting teenage hormone raging psychopa- I mean, Artemis!" Mulch grinned, shaking Butler's hand heartily.

Artemis glared at Mulch. "Great to see you, Mulch. And if you call me an angsting teenage psychopath, I will personally see to it that you regret living." Mulch pretended to cower in fear.

He covered his eyes and hid in the corner, shoving Rickey into the oven in the process. "Oh, no!" Mulch cried in a horribly piercing falsetto. "The big Bad Arty is gonna huff and puff and blow down a few dust bunnies that live in my ears. Big whoop." Mulch stood back up straight, crossed his arms, raised an eyebrow, and stared at Artemis. Artemis just looked back at Mulch with a disbelieving look on his features.

"Mulch, that didn't even make any sense."

"Damn!" Mulch muttered, snapping his fingers quickly. He noticed that Rickey's feet were sticking out of the oven and swiftly grasped them and ripped Rickey out of the small, hot, enclosed space. Rickey came out covered in soot. Once his feet were safely back on the ground where they should be, Rickey farted, right as Juliet walked into the kitchen.

"Okay, ew. Rickey, you are no longer allowed in the house under any circumstances, ever." She picked Rickey up by the armpits, walked to the door, and dropped Rickey unceremoniously on the stoop. Rickey stood up and started protesting, but she slammed the door in his face. Unfortunately, she caught a finger of his in the door, and he screamed at the top of his lungs. Juliet, not noticing the fingers in the door, ripped the door open angrily.

"WHAT?" she roared at him. He was purple in the face and clutching at his right hand. Juliet figured that he was just having another of his untimely fits and closed the door again.

She walked back into the kitchen to catch Mulch, Artemis, and Butler all situated around the kitchen table.

She took a seat next to Artemis. She waved at Mulch from across the table.

"Hey, little smelly man," Juliet said cheerfully. He smiled at her.

"Sup, Juliet, my home sista!" Juliet reached over and slapped him.

"Never say that! It sounds so weird!" Mulch covered his cheek with his hairy hands and positively howled until Butler slapped him upside the head.

"We all know it didn't hurt, Mulch, so please, just shut up. You're making my brain hurt."

"Brains can't feel pain, or any other physical sensation," Artemis put in helpfully. This little comment earned him a jab in the ribs from Juliet.

"No one cares, Arty." Juliet didn't notice Artemis doubled over in pain, gasping for breath. "So, Mulchikins!" Juliet started, but stopped when Mulch put up a warning hand.

"You call me Mulchikins, I unbutton the bum flap and send recycled crap your way, free shipping and handling."

If Juliet felt threatened, she certainly looked it too. Perhaps it's because she _did_ feel threatened; we may never know.

"Okay, Mulch, sorry," Juliet apologized. She started to say more, but Artemis interrupted her.

"Mulch, why are you here, friend?" Artemis inquired.

"Straight to the point, huh? Okay, then, Mud Boy. The real reason I am here is because I need a favor. I need money."

Artemis was confused. What could Mulch possibly need money for? "I think you'd better start at the beginning," Artemis suggested. As Artemis's suggestions were usually orders, Mulch nodded resignedly and began his tale. He steepled his fingers together like Artemis and started talking.

"It all started when I was burrowing somewhere in Africa. I had to get away from this group of people who knew I had stolen a branch from the one tree in Africa. They were very, very, very, very, very angry with me. But what else is new? So, all of a sudden, a rogue mole started following me, but I figured I could just outrun him. But, as it turns out, -" At this point, Artemis interrupted him.

"Does this have anything to do with anything, Mulch?"

Mulch was indignant. "Of course! This is the beginning! If this blasted little mole had kept to himself, I wouldn't be in this mess!" Artemis seemed skeptical, but he sat back in his chair and gazed at Mulch. "Continue," Artemis ordered.

"Okay. So, as I was saying before I was thoughtlessly interrupted by the angsting teenage weirdo," Mulch said while shooting finger guns at Artemis, who silently seethed, "The stupid little mole kept up pace with me. I burrowed all the way up Africa, not stopping till I finally came to the Mediterranean. By then, the mole stopped following me and then it came out of the ground, and started talking to me! I thought, 'No way!' And it was saying all this random stuff, and I just sat there staring at the mysterious mole! And then I came to the conclusion that I was either high or hallucinating. So, then, I decided that I was scared of the mole and left. I boarded on a random boat and they sailed across the Mediterranean in pirate outfits, and I just said 'Arrrgh!' and they left me alone the entire time! So, I came to Ireland because I knew that I could ask you for money and I would feel normal again."

They all sat there, staring at Mulch, dumbfounded. In the awkward silence that followed, Mulch for the first time, noticed Artemis's ridiculous sports outfit that he had forgotten to change out of.

"What the hell are you wearing? You look like a Canadian flag threw up all over you," Mulch commented.

All of a sudden, Rabid Rickey came running into the kitchen wrapped in a 6 foot long Canadian flag with his face painted red and white with a maple leaf in his hair, and proceeded to throw up on Artemis.

"WHAT THE HELL, RICKEY! THAT'S LIKE THE 6TH TIME YOU'VE THROWN UP! AND THIS TIME IT WAS ON ME! BUTLER, PLEASE SNAP HIS NECK!"

RRickey looked nervously at Butler and backed away slowly. "Canada is my native country," He said nervously. "I had to defend it."

Juliet looked at Rickey. "How did you get back inside?"

Mulch was just looking at Artemis with an amused look on his face. "So, the Mud Boy finally loses it. That's something I always wondered what would look like. Well," Mulch got up from his seat, and clapped Artemis on the leg (that's all he could reach), avoiding the throw up, "I think it's high time that I left." All of a sudden, he couldn't move his left leg.

Mulch looked down. Rickey had wrapped himself around Mulch's leg. He tried to shake the boy off.

"Let me come with you!" Rickey cried, pleading. Mulch bent down and put his scary face very close to Rickey's cute one. Before he could say anything threatening, Holly walked in the room.

"Oh, hey, Mulch! Ew, what is that horrible smell? Barf is not your color, Artemis. Stop wearing it. Hey, Rickey's back! Get rid of the rabies yet?" She walked over to the fridge and took out some buffalo chicken.

She took a bite. "Ahh, buffalo chicken is amazing."

All of a sudden, the doorbell rang seven times in a row. All activity ceased. Butler checked the security cameras and then turned back to the kids with a confused look on his face.

"Do we know anyone short, purple face, muscled, looks like he's either about to have a panic attack or a spaz attack and start shooting everything in sight up?" Holly, Rickey, Artemis, and Juliet all groaned.

"That's our counselor at camp, Doug," they all said with slightly apprehensive looks on their faces. This couldn't be good…

**Hope you guys enjoyed it! :) Leave a review telling me what you thought of this chapter! :D **

**Oh, and guys. I just wrote a new story called "Our Love Will Last Forever", I don't know if any of you saw it yet (except for that one genius and logan1047 :D) but I wrote it cuz I was severely bored and in the mood to write a cheesy, cringe worthy romance story. So, if you guys could check it out and leave a review telling me what you thought of it, it would me feel like a lot less of an idiot for posting it. :D **

**Oh, and if you could read my other stories and review or even just favorite them, I would love you forever! **

**Anyways, REVIEWWWW! :)**


	11. Chapter 11

**What's up guys! I'm just great. Hope you are tooo!**

**Anyways, not much to say again. Just that the song 'Misery', by Maroon 5, is only like the best song ever. I had a dance party with my friend and cousin the other day and we danced to Misery a couple hundred times in a row. It was highly awesome.**

**111 REIVEWS! WOW! *gasps dramatically* This is like… …. … IDK WHAT ITS LIKE BUT ITS REALLY REALLY REALLY COOL!**

**I really need to see another scary movie. Any suggestions? **

**Oh, and thanks you thank you thank you to those of you who read and reviewed for my other stories! You guys rock! :D**

**Again, go vote on my profile and read my other stories!:D**

**Answers to anonymous reviews:**

**Mazzer 2k9: thanks! :) yeah, I'm over that now. Anyone doesn't like it, they just don't read it. I don't gotta apologize for anything! Lolzz :) thanks for reviewing!**

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Butler cautiously walked over to the door. He looked out of the peephole and saw the man. Doug, they called him. Well, Doug was picking his nose. Butler shivered slightly in disgust. He then ripped open the door.

Doug gasped at the top of his lungs, then relaxed when it wasn't an alien at the door, only Butler. But then, Butler wasn't much safer than an alien.

Doug, figuring that Butler was probably more vicious than an alien and more likely to kill him (which was pretty accurate), deftly kicked Butler in the crotch as hard as he could, and ran inside.

As Doug ran into the kitchen, he pulled out two pistols and held them at arms length. He quickly shot Artemis twice in the chest, and then cackled maniacally.

Excerpt from Artemis's thought process mid-shooting: _I can't believe I got shot. I can't believe it. Where's Butler? Holly? Anyone? _

In actuality, Artemis was shot with water guns. Doug, in his haste, had grabbed the wrong type of gun. Oopsies on him, but YAY for Artemis!

Mulch, all of a sudden, realized that he was a fairy, a dwarf at that, and was very short and hairy. Doug had not been _mesmerized_ to see him as a regular human, as he had been done so for Holly.

_Oh, dear,_ thought Mulch. Luckily he had invaded a Halloween-In-August party on his way here and stolen a costume. He quickly grabbed said costume from his back pocket and smashed it on his face. It was one of those plastic glasses-big nose- mustache face things. Needless to say, it looked ridiculously stupid. But Doug was ridiculously stupid, so that worked itself out then.

Mulch decided to draw attention to himself like a true criminal. "Hey, stupid ugly idiot with the purplish face and the warty hands! Yeah, I'm talkin' to you," he said to Doug's questioning look. Mulch spoke in a horrible French accent.

"I don't have warts on my hands," Doug argued. Mulch chuckled condescendingly and patted Doug's shoe.

"It's okay to be in denial, sweetie. All that needs to happen is that eventually you understand that you have people around you that love you and want you to have a great life! Okay? You need to accept yourself for who you are! Everyday, people in this world die because of things. Things! Materialistic people! You have to be different, Doug! This is your time! This is you! I believe in you! ."

Mulch's little tirade had done its job: distract Doug.

Although, it seemed that Doug had heard none of Mulch's actual speech as much as he had heard the French accent.

"You're French!" He shouted at Mulch. Mulch looked on, silently fearing for the man's mental well-being and stability. Obviously, both things were severely lacking and in dire need of a new supply that would most likely never come.

Mulch slowly nodded. "Yeah, it looks that way," he said.

Doug rushed over to Mulch and stuck out his hand for Mulch to shake, a hand that was completely ignored. "The French are awesome! I always wished I spoke French fluently. I remember my mother always spoke to me in French, she did. _'Allez a' l'enfer,' _was what she always said to me. Every night before bed." Doug stared off into the distance with a dreamy look on his face.

Artemis looked up, confused. He spoke for the first time since he had been "shot" by Doug. "Your mother told you "go to hell" every night before bed?"

Doug scratched his head self-consciously. "Is that what that means? Wow, I always thought it was something more, oh I don't know, like, loving. Or something." He shrugged, clearly bothered.

Meanwhile, Juliet, seeing that Doug "made the first move in violence when he shot Artemis and now she was allowed to do whatever she wanted to him", performed a perfectly executed Lara Croft roll to Doug's side, and jabbed her elbow into the muscle behind his calf, causing his knee to buckle. In an effort to save face and peace, Doug attempted his own Lara Croft roll but epically failed. He, instead of coming to a neat landing on his feet, landed on one foot with his head between his knees and his butt in the air. He tried to keep from falling, but instead smashed into the wall.

Once Doug had gotten up, his face had resumed its natural purple color (a quite unflattering color, in fact), a color that no one enjoyed seeing, except on the late Commander Root. And everyone missed the Commander, so no one liked this unpleasant reminder of him. It seemed like an insult to the awesome fairy.

Rickey even seemed to recognize this, probably from the way everyone was shaking their heads predatorily with menacing glares on their faces all directed at Doug.

Rickey, wanting to help out his friends, made an important decision. He was going to do something drastic. Yes, he really was. He swears. There was no way ever that he was going to psych himself out. He really was gonna do this. Deep breaths. He can do this. Aaaaaaand… he's gonna do it!

Rickey took a running start, and with a flying leap, landed on Doug's back and latched himself on. Doug shrieked an animalistic scream and clawed away at his back, trying to get Rickey off.

However, this proved fruitless, because it only made Rickey hold on tighter. Artemis and company just stood there and watched the unexpected exchange. All of a sudden, Doug stopped shrieking.

He pointed at Butler. "KIDNAPPER! YOU KIDNAPPED RICKEY! I KNEW IT! I KNEW YOU STOLE HIM!" Rickey, not wanting to get Butler in trouble, threw caution to the wind and bit down on Doug's neck, hard.

Doug screamed again, this time in actual pain. He finally managed to rip Rickey from his death grip and tore his mouth off his neck. He hoisted Rickey up with a crazed look in his eyes, and threw Rickey all the way across the room, like a football.

Rickey howled the entire time he was in the air. Luckily, Butler decided to use his badass bodyguard skillz and leapt halfway across the room and caught Rickey.

"TOUCHDOWN!" Mulch roared at the top of his lungs.

"What's a touchdown?" Holly inquired.

But the small, rusty gears in Doug's head were slowly turning. "How does he know what a touchdown is? They don't have football in France! Come to think of it, that whole glasses- big nose-mustache French accent thing is looking kinda fake…" Doug trailed off into silence.

Mulch, sensing that he was about to be brought down by his own outburst, quickly scampered from the room. Apparently, "out of sight, out of mind" was Doug's motto because as soon as Mulch fled the room, Doug dropped the subject completely.

Juliet was still in awe of little Rabid Rickey's performance. "He's a rabid werewolf/vampire!" At this, both Holly and Artemis looked at her strangely.

"I see why you say vampire. But why werewolf?" Holly inquired.

"He howled while he was flying," Juliet offered. They nodded, accepting her logic even though it was very weak evidence.

All of a sudden, Holly dropped the piece of buffalo chicken she had been holding. "Ugh, I can't believe I'm even eating this! I'm a vegetarian!"

Throughout all of this, Artemis remained stoic. It kept up the image well, (the image being a sharp, good-looking Irish crime lord) and it let him analyze the situation at hand. The situation at hand was proving itself to be extremely interesting (and random and stupid and weird and a lot of other adjectives).

While all of this happened, Butler was setting Rickey safely down on his two feet. As soon as Rickey was safely on the ground, he rushed off to find a bathroom. Three guesses on what was about to go down in said bathroom. Actually don't guess, on second thought.

Once Rickey had safely run away, Butler started talking to Doug in a threatening and intimidating fashion. Doug, being jealous of Butler's awesome Irish lilt, sidled over to Artemis and started talking trash about Butler and his stupidly awesome accent.

Artemis simply looked at Doug and said to him in a quiet voice, "I have the exact same accent as Butler. Why are you telling _me_ this?" And then he told Butler, "Butler, this guy is trash talking you."

Butler glared menacingly at Doug and advanced him slowly, never taking his eyes off Doug.

"Well, this is awkward," Doug said uncertainly.

All of a sudden, Mulch walked back into the room. Everyone completely ignored him.

All of a sudden, Rickey walked back into the room. Everyone said, "Hi, Rickey!"

Out of nowhere, Juliet decided that the tense atmosphere had to be broken. So, in an attempt to break the ice, Juliet broke into song.

"I THROW MY HANDS UP IN THE AIR SOMETIMES, SINGING AYYYYYYY-OH, GALILEEEEEEEEEO! I WANNA CELEBRATE AND LIVE MY LIFE, SAYIN AYYYYYYYYY-OH, ASTRONOM-AYYYYYY-OH!" Juliet sang at the top of her lungs.

Mulch gave a slow clap. "That was profound," he remarked, wiping an invisible tear away.

Artemis, Rickey, and Holly all exchanged looks. "Somehow, Juliet, I don't think those are the right lyrics," Holly said bluntly.

Juliet puffed her chest up indignantly. "Of course they are! Clearly, the song's about a poor astronomer who just wants to be like Galileo Galilee and study the stars and planets and crap. It's very uplifting. He likes to stare at the sky and think and study and look at the stars. So romantic."

Artemis stared at Juliet for a second and then looked around quickly. "Okay, who drugged Juliet?" he called.

Doug all of a sudden, started convulsing and foaming at the mouth! The bite mark that Rickey had given him on his neck was flaming red and bleeding. He really kinda did look like a crazed vampire.

Seeing this, Juliet picked Rickey up and grabbed Mulch's hand and ran away into the living room and locked the door.

Artemis and Holly ran into the computer room and locked the door. The collapsed onto the white couch and breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, Artemis reached over and brushed a strand of Holly's hair behind her ear (she had grown it out somewhat). Holly stared at him, perplexed.

"I don't- I'm sorry-," Artemis stammered.

A knock at the door interrupted his ramblings. "It's okay, guys," came Butler's low voice. "I threw Doug out of a second story window. He won't be scaring anyone anytime soon."

Artemis and Holly rushed out the door not looking at each other, both very eager to get as far away from the other so that they could sort out their thoughts.

Butler called in Juliet, Mulch, and Rickey into the kitchen. Artemis and Holly came in reluctantly. Butler took a deep breath.

"I've decided that you are all going back to sports camp."

"What!" Juliet, Rickey, Holly, and Artemis all exclaimed.

Mulch shouted, "Sports camp!"

Oh snap…

**Hope you guys liked it! And a special thanks to: iloveashandquinn, for being the hundredth reviewer! Her prize for sending in the hundredth review was that she got to submit an idea that she wanted to see happen in this chapter, so she chose to give Doug rabies. Yaaaaaaayyyyyy!:D**

**Anyways, thanks for reading guys! :) REVIEWWWWW! :D**


	12. Chapter 12

**HEY PEOPLE! :D**

**What's goin' on? Not much here. School starts pretty soon, which is a drag. I'm not reading another book about 16****th**** century China. I do not enjoy life right now.**

**OH GUESS WHAT! I met Harry Potter yesterday! Not literally, but someone who looked JUST like him! Except he had square glasses, not painfully round ones.**

**131 reviews! I coulda sworn I just had 81 five seconds ago. Well, time flies when you're frolicking in the sun! kind of. Not that I would know. I've never frolicked in the sun. I want to though.**

**Answers to reviews!:**

**Slim Shady: YAY glad to hear you like it again! :D thanks for reviewing again, you're awesome, Eminem! **

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**On with the story! ENJOY! :D**

"Yeah!" Butler shouted in everyone's face, neck tendons suddenly sticking out alarmingly. "Now shut up and get in the car before I kill all of you. This time, I'll be staying at sports camp with you. I'll be undercover, though. I just need to go change into something more inconspicuous. I'll be back. Don't move."

Artemis, Juliet, Holly, Mulch all looked at each other, fearing for Butler's sanity. Rickey just danced around the kitchen to invisible music.

They sat in silence until, "Butler's lost his mind."

Everyone nodded. Rickey stopped dancing to nod crazily.

Exactly One Second Later, Butler walked into the room wearing a black trench coat, a monocle, and a red and orange plaid cowboy hat. He seemed to be carrying a gun inside his coat.

"Who the hell do you think you are, Sherlock Holmes on crack? Seriously, Dom, go change. You look ridiculous, bro," Juliet said incredulously. Butler pointed a meaty forefinger at her.

"Juliet, I'm going in this outfit. No one will question me. They won't see me. I'll be totally incog."

"Suuuuuuure, Dom," was all Juliet said. After that, they all climbed into the range Rover and started driving towards sports camp.

Not long after they had been in the car, Juliet started singing once again to ease the awkward silence. "I AM A MYSTERY! THERE AIN'T NO ONE FIGURING OUT ME! MY SECRETS ARE SO KEY! I AM A GREAT DETECTIVE-EE! OH YEAH! GIRL, YOU REALLY GOT ME MAD, STOP FIGURING OUT MY SECRETS CUZ MY CASE IS SOOOO SECRET AND I DON'T NEED NOSEY PEOPLE FIGURING OUT MY CRAP, OKAY? GET OFF MY CASE, DAMMIT!"

Although Rickey was dancing to Juliet's singing, the others were confused.

"I get your complete disregard for actual lyrics, Juliet, but really? You completely went off on a tangent. By the end you weren't even singing anymore, just screaming. What was going through your head?" Holly looked at Juliet, wondering if both the Butler siblings were in need of professional help.

Juliet tapped her chin with a manicured fingernail. "Well, the song's about a detective trying to get this annoying girl off his case who keeps trying to steal his facts and he's irked. Understandably," she stated matter-of-factly.

Artemis sighed. "Juliet, not all songs are about jobs."

Juliet glared at him and crossed her arms defiantly. "Oh yeah?" She said confrontationally. "What about 'I Been Workin' On The Railroad All The Livelong Day'?"

Artemis couldn't counter that.

Mulch decided it would be a good idea to agree with Juliet. "Yeah, Mud boy! Get that! And I got another one! How about 'Hi-Ho Cherry-Oh'? Yeah! Eat THAT shizzle, boy!" Mulch said, crossing his arms like a boss.

Juliet face-palmed. Holly stared at Mulch incredulously. Artemis shook his head.

"Firstly, Mulch, that's a child's game with cherry picking in a box. My younger twin brothers play it. And secondly, Mulch, listen good because this will come in handy. Never miss a good chance to shut up."

Mulch huffed and puffed at this statement for a good five minutes. "WHAT? HOW COULD YOU SAY THAT?"

"Seriously, Mulch, what did I just say? It's better to keep your mouth shut and give off the illusion of stupidity than open it and eliminate all doubt," Artemis said.

Rickey struck a gangsta pose. "PWN'D!" he screamed.

"So unnecessary," Artemis miffed.

Butler called from the front seat, "We're here!"

Mulch looked out the window and groaned. "Crap! I can't be here!"

Artemis nodded and patted Mulch's shoulder sympathetically. "I feel the same way. It's not exactly my idea of fun in the sun, either."

Mulch ripped his shoulder from underneath Artemis's hand. "No! That's the problem! I can't be in the sun, I'll burn to a crisp!"

"Figure that out for yourself. Speaking of burning, Artemis, how have you managed to not get a sunburn?" Holly inquired.

Artemis shrugged. "I'm not sure. I have it in my bag, but I never put it on."

Juliet suddenly exclaimed, "Look! Drake's coming this way!"

Butler jumped violently, and bent down so he could whisper to them.

"I have to go so I won't be seen. _Hasta la vista!_" He whisper/screamed, and was gone.

By that time, Drake had reached them. "Guys," he started in his customary bored voice, "It's come to the attention that you ditched sports camp. This makes the other kids very jealous because no one actually wants to be here so please refrain from doing that in the future. We don't want another riot." With that, he walked away back towards the tent.

"Nothing like a warm welcome to make us feel good," Holy remarked. Artemis snorted, then kicked himself. Literally.

"Artemis, what the hell?" Juliet exclaimed as Artemis fell on the ground, howling and clutching at his leg.

"Nothing," he rasped, and got back up. "Just a cramp."

"It doesn't look like nothing. Seriously, you look like Harry Potter on the verge of death."

"When is Harry Potter NOT on the verge of death?" Artemis asked.

Everyone ignored him and walked over to the multisport camp tent.

"Hey, everyone! Didja miss me?" Juliet shouted at the kids gathered around the table. No one responded except for Adam, who smiled and waved. Juliet winked.

Dressgirl said, "Hey anyone know that super-sketchy guy in the bushes over there in the trench coat and hat and monocle who keeps flashing his gun at me with a super-creepy smile?"

"Uh, nope!" Holly screamed, hoping to divert the attention from Butler.

Meanwhile, Mulch had grown extremely bored already, not to mention that his skin was burning at a very fast rate. So, naturally, he decided to find food. He heard a random counselor in the distance call out, "Okay, cheer camp, time for lunch!"

Mulch, figuring he could just follow cheer camp and fit in, followed the sound of the voice. He came to a girl counselor and about 20 young girls in pink carrying pompoms. He grabbed a pair of pompoms and held them gingerly.

The counselor shot him a strange look. "Are you in cheer camp, honey?" she asked the strange hairy kid with the costume glasses-mustache-nose face.

Mulch figuring he could get away with it, squeaked in what he hoped was a girlish voice, "Yeah, like totes!"

The counselor just shrugged and led everyone up to the lunchroom in the building. Mulch had gotten away with it!

Back at the tent, right after Holly screamed, Drake clapped his hands. "Okay, Multisport!" he bellowed. "Time for football!"

Again, it took Artemis some time to remember which game football was, then groaned when he remembered. It was the hurtful one.

Artemis was given the position where he was just standing and facing a short stubby kid in a beret and sandals. The kid sneered at him. Just as the quarterback called, "Hike!", Artemis remembered who this kid was. The boy that he had caused to lose in knockout, the one ho said he would pay when they played football.

Artemis was just simply tickled with happiness. In fact, he was so filled to the brim, he could just cry.

Again and again, Artemis was trucked, mauled, checked, rammed, decked, and everything else painful by this surprisingly solid kid who had a vengeance.

When everything became blurry with pain, Artemis finally fainted, and had to be carted off to the nurse. Rickey decided to tag along even though he was deathly afraid of the nurse.

When Artemis arrived at the nurse's office, which was about a hundred yards from the multisport camp tent, he had woken up and was able to walk inside himself although he was in a great deal of pain. The lunch lady who had brought him there went back to the cafeteria to oversee things.

Artemis walked in the waiting room and sat down in a blue plastic chair clearly meant for a two year old. Rickey sat in an identical one to Artemis's left. He fit perfectly in the chair.

All of a sudden, a door at the end of the waiting room banged open and out came a person. Artemis jumped in fright, and Rickey let out a high-pitched keening sound that can be correctly identified as a wolf howl. But that will never be proved.

The nurse was very, ah, unusual. Artemis was unsure if the nurse was male or female. They had lipstick and lip liner on, but they had manly features and curly coarse black hair. They wore very big sunglasses and wore black motorcycle leather clothes as though they were a part of Hells Angels.

"Hello," the nurse rumbled in a voice at least 3 octaves lower than Artemis's voice. "I'm the nurse. You can call me Z."

Artemis stood up and regarded Z carefully. "I came here because I passed out from pain from too many hits. I was wondering if you could give me some pain medication."

Z laughed loudly. "Of course I can, sonny! Here we are," Z said, taking a syringe full of bright green liquid out of his pocket. He quickly walked over to Artemis and stuck the needle in his arm and quickly injected it.

Artemis felt woozy immediately. "What did you just give me?" he cried nervously.

Z gave him a _look_. "I gave you pain medication! Don't fight it." Artemis could feel himself becoming numb.

"Okay," he agreed stupidly. He couldn't feel his head.

"And here is the rabid boy everyone keeps telling me about!" Z roared excitedly, pointing at Rickey, who looked terrified. "I have just the thing for you," Z said, advancing.

Artemis understood that he needed to get Rickey out of there before Z killed them both. He quickly picked up Rickey and rushed out of the nurse's office. When they got outside, Rickey squirmed out of Artemis's arms and ran away, crying.

While Artemis had been in the nurse's office, football had ended and people in multisport were gathered around the picnic tables in the tent. Juliet, being bored since Holly was getting water, walked over to Drake and sat down beside him.

She took off her sneaker and sock and put her foot in the air. She swung around to face Drake and waved her foot around. All at once, she poked Drake in the eye with her toe. She did this repeatedly, ad Drake just became more and more agitated.

Finally, Juliet took pity on him. "Is my toe bothering you?" she asked innocently. He nodded stupidly. For good measure, she poked him in the eye a few more times then replaced her shoe and sock, seeing that Holly was back from getting her water.

Holly gestured for Juliet to come sit next to her in the grass next to the big tree. Juliet obliged, thinking it was weird that Holly wasn't coming over to sit next to her in the tent.

Holly sat down cross-legged in the grass and Juliet mimicked her.

Holly started awkwardly. "Okay, I don't know how to do this, I've never done it before but… I like him," she said painfully, shooting Juliet looks.

Juliet smiled. "Who's him?" she asked.

Holly looked at her, annoyed. "Come on, Juliet, who the hell do you THINK it is?"

Juliet jumped up and down rapidly. "OMG, is it Drake?" she squealed.

Holly blew several gaskets, as she screamed, "NO!"

Juliet put her hands up in defense. "I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that it's NOT Drake."

Holly glared. "Ya think?"

"Yeah, my bad. It's Artemis isn't it," Juliet said this like a comment, not a question.

Holly gasped. "How did you know? And don't say it so loud, damnit! We need like a code name for him.

"Okay. His code name will be James."

At this precise moment, Artemis wandered over to stand behind the tree where Juliet and Holly were sitting.

Holly said, with Artemis listening although she didn't know it, "Fine. How did you know I like James though?"

Juliet giggled. "The way you look at him. You love his blue eyes, don't you?"

Holly glared, then softened. "…Don't tell anyone. But yeah, they're amazing. God, I can't believe I'm actually having this conversation." She sighed.

Juliet, ignoring Holly, squealed, clapping her hands together. "Ohh, this is gonna be so much fun getting you two together!" With that, she ran off.

Artemis, on the other hand, felt like a brick had gone and smashed itself into his chest. He tried to understand this, when he came to a realization. He liked Holly. As in, more than a friend. And she liked someone else. Someone named James.

Artemis, unable to face Holly after hearing this, ran off from behind the tree without Holly noticing. He ran away from multisport up the hill to soccer camp. He walked over to the water bin where people from soccer were taking drinks.

Artemis took a drink himself and sat down on the bench, crestfallen. Holly liked another man. He was broken from his thoughts when someone sat down beside him.

"I've never seen you before," a friendly voice said. "Do you go to soccer camp?" Artemis looked up to see a boy about his age holding out his hand for Artemis to shake. The boy had dark blonde hair, smooth tan skin, and brilliant blue eyes. And, Artemis admitted to himself begrudgingly, was unfairly good-looking.

Artemis nodded and took the boys hand and shook it. "No, I go to multisport camp. I'm just escaping for a while." The boy laughed.

"I know how it is," he said. "I was there last week. Multisport can be a bit much."

Artemis laughed. "Yeah, a bit much is a huge understatement."

The other boy grinned. "I'm James, by the way."

"Artemis," Artemis replied, until the other's name hit him. James! Could this be the James that Holly liked? With his blue eyes and blonde hair…

**OMG THE PLOT IS FINALLY HERE! Sorry it took so long for it to show up. Funny thing is I didn't even have a plot until like last night. So, hope you enjoyed this chapter, tell me what you thought of it!**

**Thanks for reading! REVIEWWWWW!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Hi, guys! :) thanks to everyone that reviewed! You guys rock!**

**How's the end of your summer going? Mine's going way too fast. Unfortunately. :(**

**By the way, guys, if any of you like Harry Potter and HP fanfiction I just posted a new story the other day called "I Killed Sirius Black!" I know it sounds heartbreaking, but it's not, I promise! Go read it and review, pleeeeease! It would mean a lot to me.**

**OMG! New song obsession: "If I Had You" by Adam Lambert. BEST. SONG. EVER. Also, watch the music video. Amazing. **

**Saying 'bloody' is so much fun. Even though I'm not British.**

**Answers to anonymous reviews!: **

**Mazzer 2k9: yeah, I know :( but he'll be okay. He always is. Thanks!**

**Thesecretsuperspyinmyattic: nub? I'm gonna go with the iCarly definition of nub and say HEY HE IS NOT A NUB! But everyone is entitled to opinions, so you don't like James, I don't like chewing gum. We're even. :D thanks for reviewing!**

**MISH STIXXXX ur bfflad: heyy moxie girl! I already described his hair, but I'll describe it now. "James's hair was dark gold, but it used to be more awesome because it was platinum blond until he cut it and ruined his voice." **

**On with the story! ENJOY! :D**

Could this seriously be the James that Holly liked? Artemis certainly thought it was. The boy was much better looking than himself, something that while it was annoying, could not be helped.

Anyone would like James over than Artemis. James was funny, nice, and bloody gorgeous. Artemis was condescending, annoying, and a know-it-all.

Comparison? There isn't even one.

That's what Artemis was thinking to himself as he sat next to James, feeling very down on himself. He was appalled by the self-doubtful thoughts he was having, but couldn't help them.

James was confused as to why Artemis seemed to have shut down after offering his name. He wondered if it was something he had said. He mentally ran through their entire conversation and found nothing wrong with it. He wondered what was wrong with the black haired boy.

Artemis was broken away from his self-destructing thoughts when screams could be heard from the multisport field, coming closer to the soccer field. He and James quickly stood up to see what all the noise and commotion was about, and realized that it was simply multisport camp on their way up to the soccer fields.

Artemis, nodding a quick good-bye to James, went over to where Rickey, Holly, and Juliet were walking. He, carefully avoiding looking at Holly, asked what everyone was doing.

"I told Drake that you'd come up here, so he told me that everyone could go p with you and we could play soccer against soccer camp!" Rickey squeaked. Artemis bristled at the thought that Rickey had told Drake where he'd gone. He knew slapping Rickey upside the head would be a bad choice, though, so he held himself back from doing that, at least. He did manage to flick Rickey in the ear, though.

"Okay, everyone!" Greg, the British soccer counselor called. Everyone turned to look at him and quieted down immediately. Drake looked slightly bitter that he couldn't command that kind of respect from his own campers, but got over it after Juliet threw her water on him directly from her mouth.

"We are going to play a friendly game of soccer, soccer camp against multisport camp. First, shoot on goal to get warmed up." Greg turned away and walked over to Drake to discuss the details of the game, which were close to none.

From a little ways away, Juliet spotted Caterina, the girl she had stolen the iPod from. They sent threatening looks at each other, ones that clearly said, "This will come to a fight in the end."

Juliet was about to walk over to Cat and confront her for no reason, when suddenly James walked by Juliet right in front of her, and shot her a dazzling smile. Instead of going after Cat, she smiled back at James and fell into step with him, talking to him and flirting with him.

Holly, upon seeing this, was amused. She was happy for Juliet that Juliet had finally found someone she actually liked. Artemis, upon seeing this, was shocked and faintly disgusted with Juliet, although he was still sad that Holly "liked" James. He was very surprised that Juliet would blatantly betray her friend like that.

After this, everyone had to get lined up for the warm-up.

When everyone was lined up in front of the goal, people started shooting on goal. James kept shooting it powerfully towards the upper right corner, but it ended up going over the goal every time and into the bushes. Every time this happened, he grinned, sighed good-naturedly, and said, "Damn, this happens way too much," and ran into the bushes to retrieve the ball.

Everyone who kicked the ball in the bush had to go get it.

When it was Juliet's turn to kick the ball, she kicked the ball clear over the goal and deep into the bushes. Seeing this and deciding right then and there that there was no way she was going into those bushes, she turned her back on the goal and hid behind Artemis.

"Uh, Juliet, are you going to go get that ball?" Adam asked. Juliet looked at him feigning surprise.

"What are you talking about? I didn't kick the ball in the bushes," Juliet insisted. Adam looked confused.

Then, angrily, Cat stepped in. "Um excuse me, but you _definitely_ kicked the ball in the bushes. I _watched_ you do it. Now, _go get it. Or I will kill you._" Finishing this statement, she stepped forward and pushed Juliet in the direction of the bushes, hard. Juliet fell hard on her butt, and got back up with a murderous look on her face that said, "Oh, _hell _no."

But before Juliet could push Cat back, Greg blew his whistle and the game was about to star. Leaving Cat with a menacing glare which was returned whole-heartedly, Juliet stomped over to Drake and the rest of multisport.

After they had gone over game plays that Drake seemed to think were brilliant but in reality were as stupid as stupid could get, they went out on the field and waited for the game to start.

Artemis, who was playing defense, turned around when he heard people talking behind him. Drake and Greg were talking about things, and there was this big, fat kid who was standing about three feet away from Artemis in flip-flops.

Artemis stared at the kid incredulously. "What position are you supposed to be playing?" Artemis asked him slightly suspiciously. Even though he had never played soccer before, he was fairly certain that there was only supposed to be one right defender.

"I have no idea," the kid offered, shuffling his feet. Artemis glanced down.

"Isn't it going to be hard playing in sandals?" He asked. The kid shrugged.

"Not really gonna play that much," He answered. Artemis didn't respond.

Turning back around, he noticed Rickey was bending over at the middle and looking upside down through his legs, as children sometimes do.

Another kid, Stalker, had picked up a long skinny stick, about 3 feet long, and was waving it around like a sword. After he got bored of this, he walked over to Rickey and started jabbing Rickey's butt crack with the stick, hard and several times in a row.

Rickey immediately jumped up and turned around, green eyes flashing in anger and disbelief. "WHAT THE HELL?" he screamed at Stalker.

Stalker resumed waving the stick around and shrugged. Artemis was shocked. Shocked. He glanced over at Holly and Juliet to see what their reactions to this were. Holly was just staring at Rickey and Stalker, as if trying to figure out what had just happened. Juliet, on the other hand, was doubled over in two, clutching her stomach, and howling with laughter.

Artemis, seeing this, combined with what had just happened, let out a little chuckle as well. It was pretty funny, after all.

Juliet walked over to Holly and Artemis. "Looks like little Rickey's lost his innocence, poor thing," she crooned, and then doubled over laughing again.

After this, Greg blew his whistle and everyone started playing. Soccer camp got three goals in the first five minutes. This was probably the result of Artemis being on defense, no one trying, no one in goal, Juliet still laughing, and Holy never having played the sport before.

Two of the goals were scored by James, and one by a little kid. There were about fifty little kids about 6 years old all playing offence for soccer camp, and they were killing multisport. This went on for a while.

It was especially bad for Artemis, since James was playing offence and Artemis was supposed to be covering him. James got by him easily every time.

Until one time, when James made a mistake. When trying to pull the ball back, he fumbled his foot and the ball rolled away. Artemis, seizing his opportunity, ran at the soccer ball and kicked it as hard as he could. The ball traveled about 50 yards, half the soccer field, where Juliet was waiting in the wings. She trapped the ball, made a quick breakaway, and scored a goal.

Artemis, not even realizing this, was staring at his own leg in astonishment. Did he really just kick the ball halfway down the field, or was he high?

He was jolted from his thoughts when James slapped him on the back and laughed. "Great job," James said, grinning. "Not many people can get the ball away from me." With that said, James jogged away from Artemis back to his position on the other side of the midfield line.

This went on for a little while longer, until Greg called for a water break. Artemis jogged off the field with Juliet, Holly, and Rickey. James joined them a little while later, when they were getting water.

Then the impossible happened. Doug, the rabid counselor that was believed to be dead, limped up to the soccer field!

"I wanna play," Doug growled at Greg. Greg nodded.

"Sure, mate," Greg said amiably. Doug nodded his thanks, then turned to glare at Artemis, Holly, Juliet, and Rickey.

James asked out of the corner of his mouth, "Why is the freaky dude shooting daggers from his eyes at you guys?"

Everyone shook their heads. They had no idea how Doug was even alive…

In his spy bush, Butler almost gasped in shock. How was Doug alive? He took out his hot pink fedora from his pocket and wrapped it around his neck thoughtfully. He might be needed at this camp, after all…

**And here's another chapter for you guys! I've decided to break it into two parts, cuz it was just way too long to make into one and I'm tired. So the next one should be up soon! Hope you guys liked this one!**

**Another author's note: yeah guys, remember the second chapter's author's note where I said that OC's weren't gonna be a big part of the story? Yeah, I lied. But in fairness, I didn't know I was lying at the time! So sorry if this bothers you. Hope you keep reading regardless!**

**Thanks for reading! REVIEWWWW! :D**


	14. Chapter 14

**Hi guys! How are you? School started today. :( But that's okay.**

**My favorite teachers are… English, Science, and Math. My science teacher looks exactly like House! If only he had a british accent. **

**Oh yeah I gotta apologize to you guys, and thanks to Chatters (thanks, girlie!) and I Beast At Trumpet for pointing out to me that a fedora was a hat, not a feather boa as I thought. My bad, so forgive me for that! (although I don't see why you wouldn't forgive me for that lol)**

**Also! Other songs that are amazing: 'Club Can't Handle Me' by Flo Rida**

'**Ridin' Solo' By Jason Derulo (this one makes you dance)**

**oh, and on Sunday I flew a kite for the first time at the beach! It was super fun till it went down and managed to hit my cousin, even though he had gone into crash position. Turns out Crash position doesn't always work… eh live and learn I guess.**

**Answers to anonymous reviews!: **

**Chatters: lol it's cuz James is the name of the gods. **

**Mazzer 2k9: yeah! They are! But not in this chapter, sorry. Next one you'll see more of Doug. Thanks for reviewing!**

**Thessecretsuperspyinmyattic: glad you like it! D**

**Thanks for the reviews! Onto the story! ENJOY! :)**

So, Doug was back. Yay!

Someone was definitely gonna die today.

Everyone went over to the water bin, trying to avoid Doug. Doug simply walked over to Drake and started screaming at him like the maniac we all know and love. Drake just stood there and took it, trying not to cry.

"I AM ABOUT TO PASS OUT!" Doug roared at Drake. Drake feebly offered Doug a gummy bear.

"Gummy bear?" he asked. Doug meanly knocked the gummy bear out of Drake's hand, which Drake dove after.

"What a blinking idiot," Doug huffed, rubbing angrily at his bloodshot eyes. Drake blinked.

"What?" He blinked again. Doug punched him in the face. Drake shut up.

Juliet, Artemis, Holly, James, and Rickey, trying to avoid this little spat, went over to hide under the tent.

All was well until James spotted another soccer camper, DC, kicking some poor little six year old in the face. He went over to intervene, and possibly kick DC in the face, just to get revenge for the little kid.

While they sat on the bench, drinking their water, Juliet watched James go over to the scuffle between DC and the little kid. She got distracted by high-pitched laughter, though, and looked over to the source of the irritating noise.

She finally located the person emitting the horrendous sound. It was a boy that had light brown hair shaped like a helmet on his head, was pretty short, and had the body of a twelve-year-old girl. Actually, he kind of looked like a twelve-year-old girl… awkward! Anyways, in other words, he was Justin Bieber.

Juliet, upon realizing this, nudged Holly in the gut, probably a little harder than necessary, seeing as Holly doubled over in pain, and whisper/screamed, "HOLY CRAP IT"S JUSTIN BIEBER!"

"Juliet, would you please kindly go kill yourself?" Holly managed to wheeze out, still annoyed from the jabbing.

Juliet looked slightly hurt. "I'm a little nervous that you would suggest suicide for me, Holly. I mean, if it's just an excuse for me to die so you wouldn't be charged for homicide but want me gone, then… just… DON'T TALK TO ME!" Juliet started crying and ran away, clutching her eyes.

Exactly five seconds later, Juliet walked back to where Holly was sitting and plunked down on the seat she had just occupied. Rickey, who had climbed onto her lap, was promptly tossed away into a ditch as Juliet eagerly started talking to Holly.

"Look, Holly! Tell me that kid doesn't look EXACTLY like Justin Bieber." Holly rolled her eyes and out her hand on her forehead.

"Juliet, please for once in your life, could you just- HOLY CRAP IT'S JUSTIN BIEBER!" Holly screamed, as Juliet forced her head around so she was facing the JustinBieberlookalike.

Immediately, Juliet's hand was clamped around her mouth.

"Holly, shut_ up_! You can't go around saying things like that! Both Dressgirl and Doug just almost wet their pants because they turned their heads so fast trying to see JB. You gotta be more calm cool collect. Like me," Juliet said, smoothing down her blonde ponytail.

Holly lightly smacked Juliet. "Okay, I got a plan of how we can tell if it's really Justin Bieber. We're gonna sneak up to him and follow him around and sing one of his songs, okay? Sound good?" Juliet nodded vigorously.

"Good. Let's sing… um…" Juliet stalled, not really knowing too many of his songs.

"Never say Never," offered Holly. It was really the only song by him she knew.

"'Kay," Juliet agreed. "This is how we're gonna do it. We're gonna quickly sneak over and hide behind that conveniently placed shrubbery, and belt out 'Never Say Never', okay?" Holly nodded.

"LET"S DO IT!" Juliet screeched. Then she quieted down, so as to not attract any attention whatsoever (which didn't work at all).

So Holly and Juliet got down on their hands and knees and sneakily crawled over to where Justin Bieber and his groupies were standing, tittering.

"On three," whispered Holly to Juliet, who took a deep breath and saluted.

Holly, after giving Juliet a strange look for the saluting, counted quietly to three.

On three, they both started singing at the top of their lungs. However, they were singing different things…

Holly scream/sang, "I WILL NEVER SAY NEVER! I WILL FIGHT TILL FOREVER, TO MAKE IT RIGHT! WHENEVER YOU KNOCK ME DOWN, I WILL NOT STAY ON THE GROUND, PICK IT UP, PICK IT UP, PICK IT UP, PICK IT UP, UP, UP, UP, NEVER SAY NEVER!"

Juliet sang something completely different. "NEVER HAVE I EVER JUMPED OUT OF AN AIRPLANE, WHICH SUCKS BECAUSE I REALLY WANT TO BUT THE DUDE ON THE PLANE SAID IT WAS NOT THE TIME OR THE PLACE. I MEAN, HOW WAS IT NOT A PLACE, IT WAS ON A FRICKIN AIRPLANE!"

Huffing in exasperation, Holly stood up and glared at Juliet, who also stood up. "Damnit Juliet, we were SINGING THE SONG 'Never Say Never', not PLAYING 'Never Have I Ever'!" She threw up her hands and screamed in annoyance.

Juliet drew back in alarm and crossed her arms, feeling confused. "I never seem to get these lyrics right!" Holly sighed noisily.

"No, you don't. Now, you're going to go over to your backpack, take out Cat's iPod, and listen to the Justin Bieber song called Never Say Never that she undoubtedly has. GO," she ordered.

"But the iPod wasn't in my backpack the last time I checked," Juliet protested. Holly rolled her eyes.

"I have a feeling it'll be there. Just go."

Juliet walked despondently back to her backpack, and dug through it. Surprisingly, Cat's iPod was once again inside. Juliet considered wondering about this, but decided not to because it was too much of a hassle to use her brain in the heat.

Juliet put the ear buds and went to songs. She found the song and started listening to it. It wasn't bad. She sat there, taking in the lyrics, and listened to it on repeat. By the fourth time she heard it, she had the song memorized.

"I never thought that I, could walk through fire, I never thought that I would take the burn. I never had the strength to take it higher, until I reached the point of no return," Juliet sang.

Suddenly, a croaky, unbroken voice sang along with hers. Juliet slowly turned around, so shocked by this horrendous voice that she had to know who it was.

It was, of course, Drake.

He was singing along with her and also rocking out, using his own dance moves. Juliet stared at him incredulously, taking the ear buds out of her ears.

"Drake, what _exactly_ are you doing?" she asked slowly and precisely. Before he could stop dancing and singing to look guilty, Cat came storming over.

"Give me my iPod. Now," Cat commanded. Juliet gasped at her rudeness.

"Excuse me! That is no way to ask for something!" Cat glared, then addressed Drake.

"Drake! This girl-,"

"Juliet," Juliet said.

"Juliet won't give me my iPod back!"

Drake snorted and huffed and coughed and convulsed. When he was back under control, he waved his finger at Juliet. "Detention!"

Juliet gaped. "You can't give me detention! This is _sports camp_."

Drake looked mildly confused. "…damnit." Juliet rolled her eyes and turned back to Cat.

"Well," Juliet announced, then proceeded to attack Cat without preamble.

After this went on for about twenty more minutes (in which time that Holly and Rickey had wandered over), they stopped without warning. Without another word, Juliet handed the iPod over to Cat.

Holly saw the exchange and raised her eyebrows. "Wow, so much could have been avoided if you just did that in the first place."

"I would have, except someone took the iPod out of my backpack and then out it back in!" Off-key, high-pitched whistling cut Juliet off. They all looked over to see Rickey looking extremely guilty, whistling, rocking back and forth on his heels, twirling his longish brown hair around a finger. He was such a cute kid. But that didn't fool anyone.

Holly walked over to Rickey and patted him on the shoulder. "Rickey, you can whistle and look bashful all you want, it just makes you look more guilty."

Meanwhile, while this was all going on Mulch has decided to make a surprise appearance. He burrowed up through the ground where Artemis happened to be sitting. Mulch observed the Irish teen for a second then hissed, "Pssssssst, Mud Boy!"

Artemis's head whipped around so fast that he clutched at his neck and breathed, "Ow," then saw Mulch. "MULCH! What are you doing? Go over there on the other side of the bush. I'll talk to you in the multisport field."

That said, Mulch's head disappeared. Artemis quickly (for him) jogged down and around the hill that led around the bush and hill that separated multisport from soccer camp.

Mulch's head popped up as Artemis arrived. "Alright, Mud Boy, out with it."

Artemis sighed and crouched down next to Mulch. "I need your help."

Mulch's eyebrows disappeared underneath his gross hair. "With what?"

Artemis took a deep breath. "Well… Holly told Juliet that she liked a guy named James and Juliet was going to get them together and then I saw before Juliet and James were flirting! I don't know how she could do that to Holly but I need you to, erm, keep tabs on them to make sure they don't get together behind Holly's back."

Mulch studied Artemis. "You hate that she likes someone else, don't you," he said matter-of-factly.

Artemis started to object, but Mulch raised a hand to silence him. "No, it wasn't a question. And yeah, I'll 'keep tabs' on them as you requested. If you let me stay with you guys at sports camp."

Artemis nodded. "Sure."

Mulch grinned widely, spit on his hand, and held it out for Artemis to shake. "Shake on it?"

'Um, no. Gangsta pose on it?" said Artemis, trying for once to be a teenager and failing miserably.

Mulch roared with laughter and shook his head. "It's okay, Mud Boy. We got a deal!" With that, Mulch disappeared in the earth.

Why couldn't Artemis get the thought that this might not go so well out of his head? Only time would tell…

**Okay, guys! Here's part two of this chapter! Part three will be up soon I guess. Yeah it's that long lol. Anyways, again, review a lot and make me happy because school started today and I'm sad about summer being over. Pleeeease? Thanks. You guys are the best :D**

**Thanks for reading! REVIEW!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Hi, all! School is awesome, for those of you that were wondering. It's super fun! I know, how can school be fun, but seriously! It's great.**

**So yeah, not really that much to say this chapter. I won my soccer game today? Lol that's pretty much it, I guess. **

**There wasn't any anonymous reviews last chapter. There weren't a lot of reviews last chapter altogether… is the story getting boring? I hope not :(**

**Anyway, Enjoy the chapter! :D**

Artemis sat there in the dirt, staring at the spot where Mulch's recycled crap lay, pondering. I would tell you what he was pondering, but I don't know what he was pondering. So we're just going to go with that he was pondering about Holly.

All of a sudden, Artemis was jerked out of his philosophical thinking by the incessant screeching noises most often coming out of Doug's mouth.

Artemis could hear his roaring from the multisport side of the bush. "EVERYONE IN MULTISPORT AND SOCCER CAMP, GET OVER HERE NOW BEFORE I KILL ALL OF YOU!" Accurately taking this as a promising and direct threat, Artemis stood up and jogged back to the soccer field. He walked over to where Doug, Drake, and the rest of Multisport was huddled.

He got there in time to catch some of Doug's crazed speech. Juliet was hugging Rickey to her chest in a protective manner (protecting him from Rabid Doug), and Holly was half hiding behind Juliet, half facing Doug bravely. Artemis went over and stood next to Holly.

"Now Multisport!" Doug was yelling. "I decided to come back to camp to teach everyone a lesson. Okay! So I'll be playing on your team in the second half of the game against soccer camp. Our strategy is a little something I like to call "Operation Let Doug Get Everything", okay? You know what that means? LET ME GET EVERYTHING OR THE KID DIES!"

He took out a pistol and pointed it at Rickey, who whimpered. Juliet clutched him closer. Doug hid the pistol once more and surveyed the group with his scary bloodshot eyes and foamy mouth. He spat on the ground. Everyone screamed, probably thinking he was killing ants just for show.

After this, they all got onto the field into their positions (no one had a position). Doug took the front along with Holly. Juliet took the middle with Rickey, and Artemis took the back. He was once again guarding James. _Great_, he thought, eyeing the blonde haired boy warily.

Craig blew the whistle signaling the game to start, and Doug immediately got the ball. He dribbled all the way up the field and scored in less than five seconds.

Stalker, seeing this, squealed in delight girlishly. "Oh my god, that was so cool! Doug looks rabid. Hey, maybe having rabies makes you invincible or something! Hey, Rickey, come here." Rickey went over to Stalker, who picked him up.

"Let's see if you can fly!" With that, he threw Rickey on the ground as hard as he could. Rickey squeaked in pain and disbelief.

"What was that for?" he wheezed, having had the wind knocked out of him. Juliet, seeing this, rushed over.

"HOLY CRAP, STALKER! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, THROWING LITTLE KIDS ON THE FLOOR?" That said, she punched him square in the face. Stalker ran off the field crying. Juliet stared after him insolently and then bent down to where Rickey lay on the ground.

"You okay, sweetie?" she asked, concerned. He nodded piteously.

While this was going on, the game had resumed. Doug again and again got the ball and scored.

One time, however, a little kid somehow by some miracle managed to steal the ball from Doug. He dove between Doug's legs, causing Doug to trip and lose the ball. The kid laughed in delight and took off with the ball.

Livid, Doug had gotten up and sprinted after the kid. Catching up with the kid, he stole it from him, knocking the little boy to the grass in the process. Doug took off towards the goal, his calf muscles bulging and tendons sticking out. He scored and in a sudden fit of elation, did a victory lap around the entire soccer field, just screaming.

These two little boys, seeing this particular turn of events, whispered to each other, "I think Doug's possessed."

However, the kid he had smashed into was still lying prone on the floor, immobile. Drake hurried onto the field, scooped up the kid and threw him in the back of the golf cart, and drove off to the nurse's office. Artemis and Rickey caught each other's eyes, and shuddered in sympathy for the poor kid.

Drake returned five minutes later, kid-less, with a blood spattered t-shirt and a glazed look. No one wanted to know.

Doug was just getting every single ball and dribbling up the field past everyone and scoring. At times, he yelled statements that rubbed the game in the other team's face, such as, "THIS IS A FRIENDLY GAME OF 'WE BEAT YOUR ASS DOWN'!" The other team was not thrilled with this, but there really wasn't anything they could do as Doug was awesome at soccer, plus he had a gun.

Artemis didn't really care about all the goals his team was getting, just mainly focused on the fact that he didn't have to do anything, least of all guard James which was hard work and not at all rewarding. In fact, Artemis barely even saw James all game, besides the few instances where their eyes caught and James smiled at him before focusing on the game once more.

But that was pretty much it. Juliet and Holly, however, were having the time of their lives. They had completely given up on the game and were sitting in the corner of the field with Rickey, picking flowers to make into a wreath like one that an ancient Roman god would wear. Like the laurel leaf crown.

On one other occasion, Doug made another mistake involving a minor. He had yet another breakaway, and was running down the field to get a goal. Unbeknownst to him, Cat was on his heels the entire time, and about twenty yards before the box, Cat put on a burst of speed and threw herself in front of Doug.

He tripped over her and she flew high in the air like Rickey hadn't managed to do, landing about ten feet away. She connected with the earth hard on her foot, which crumpled beneath her. He just sat there, grasping her ankle, a grimace of pain on her face.

James ran over to her to see if she was okay. Juliet shot James a look of jealousy. Holly noticed this and stared at Juliet, wondering if she really actually liked James. Artemis, noticing all of this, misinterpreted Holly's gaze on Juliet as calculating jealousy.

He then, in turn, glared at Juliet, all the more disgusted that she was openly betraying her friend like this. He hoped Mulch was going to do a good job with his investigations.

Once Cat could talk through the pain, she screamed. "MY ANKLE GOT SHOT! I'VE BEEN SHOT!" To demonstrate her point, she slowly took her cleat off, albeit with many groans of pain. Once the cleat was off, she displayed her ankle.

Sure enough, her ankle was bleeding profusely through her shin guard and sock. The bullet hole was prominent in her cleat, and sock. She moaned with pain, and disgust at seeing her gross ankle wound. She stared at Doug, who had an equally sized bullet hole in the pocket of his shorts.

"You shot me! In the ankle! In a SOCCER GAME!" She screeched, pointing an accusing finger at him. Doug backed up, with his hands up by his ears in a 'surrendering' position.

Sensing that he was not going to get away with this, Doug suddenly turned and ran. No one moved to stop him.

Drake decided to call the police, though. All of the campers listened to his conversation.

"Hi, uhh, this is, ummmm, Drake? Is this the, uhh, police number hotline thing? Cuz, you know, I can call back if it isn't, it's not a problem-," Here he must have been cut off by the police.

"Well, uhh," he continued uncertainly. "A girl got shot in the ankle by one of our rabid camp counselors during a soccer game. Okay bye!" Drake said and quickly hung up. They all rolled their eyes at him and walked away.

Artemis walked over to the water container, where he struck up a friendly conversation with James. It was surprisingly easy to talk to him.

Holly had decided to take off to the bathroom, because Rickey really had to go. Juliet would have normally taken him, but she was in the middle of talking to Mulch.

Mulch, for some reason, had a pad of paper and a pencil in his hands, and was writing their entire conversation down. Oddly enough, even though Mulch was trying so hard to seem natural, it was rather painfully obvious that he was interrogating her although she had no idea why.

"Soooo, Juliet! How's the love life?"

Juliet raised her eyebrows. "Currently I have twelve boyfriends in Dublin. Why do you ask?"

Mulch shrugged in what he hoped was a nonchalant way. "Oh, no reason. So, you want another boyfriend? Have your eye on anyone in particular?" He winked creepily at her. Despite their friendship, she had to swallow a little throw up.

"Mulch, I am not going to be your girlfriend. Sorry little man but I stick to strictly humans." Mulch rolled his eyes exasperatedly.

"God, Juliet! Not me! I'm talking about at camp!"

"Oh. Well yeah, I like this kid named James. But don't tell Artemis, and especially don't tell Holly!"

Mulch silently assessed this. Juliet was handing him all the clues. "Why don't you want me to tell them?"

Juliet sighed. "I don't know. I think James already likes someone, and I'm getting jealous." Mulch hadn't expected this. Juliet clearly thought James liked Holly back, and didn't want Mulch to tell Holly that she liked him too so Holly could be happy. But Juliet was getting jealous of Holly, and this could potentially ruin their friendship, Artemis's relationship with both Holly and James, and everyone's trust and happiness with each other.

Mulch sat there in horror, trying to figure out the situation. Once he got it all down, he realized he needed to get away, quick. He needed a distraction technique.

Seeing a way out, Mulch did some quick fancy work, and then addressed Juliet again. "Juliet, where are your shoes?" He asked.

Juliet looked down in confusion, then shock as she realized her shoes were missing off her own feet. "I have no idea!" Mulch giggled, and tossed her shoes at her. He had stolen the shoes off her feet.

"See ya later, Mud Girl!" Mulch cried out, and dove into the earth. Juliet just managed to get out of the way before she was blown away with Mulch's recyclings.

After she had gotten her shoes back on her feet, Juliet rejoined the rest of multisport. She regrouped with Artemis, Holly, James, and Rickey.

"Hey, what happened to the dude you guys were stalking and singing Justin Bieber songs to?" Rickey suddenly inquired. He still seemed slightly bitter at being shoved off of Juliet, but he would forgive her.

Holly shrugged. "He was sacrificed to the volcano gods."

"There are volcano gods?" Rickey asked, awed. Holly nodded.

Immediately, Drake was dressed in an Indian headdress and a grass hula skirt and coconut bra.

"Look, it's a volcano god!" Rickey squealed. All of a sudden, the demon, No1 materialized next to them.

"Hello, all!" He greeted them enthusiastically, a greeting that was returned wholeheartedly. "I thought you guys would enjoy seeing your camp counselor in a volcano god outfit. Oh well, gotta run!" With that, No1 clapped and Drake was once again in his regular clothes.

No1 waved, and snapped. He promptly disappeared.

Juliet groaned. "I love him, but does he have to snap before disappearing? I mean, this isn't 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch', you know."

James tilted his head thoughtfully. "Did they do that in 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch'?"

Juliet shrugged.

Artemis rolled his eyes fondly at all his friends. He loved all of them (although maybe not James yet as he had just met him that day), but he still couldn't wait to hear what Mulch had to say…

**Thanks for reading guys! Please review, I didn't get that many reviews last chapter, which made me sadder than I thought it would :( so if you could just take two seconds of your time and review you would be the awesomest person in the whole world! Those of you that are reviewing, and those of you that reviewed for this past chapter, you rock! :D**

**Anyways, thanks for reading! REVIEWWWW! :D**


	16. Chapter 16

**Hi, guys! Glad to see everyone (I think) liked the last chapter! This new one's a filler of sorts, because I don't know what I'm gonna do next, but bear with me. I will find a way out of this blasted writer's block! (hopefully, lol. Otherwise the story goes down in flames, which would be a shame because I think this chapter brings it up to over 30,000 words!)**

**Anyways, guys, I hope you enjoy this chapter! :D I love all of you, my reviewers! *hugs***

**ENJOY!**

"Pssssssst! Artemis!" Artemis looked over his shoulder to find the source of the disembodied voice and spotted Mulch at the edge of the bushes, gesturing wildly for Artemis to join him. He was waving a pad of paper around crazily in his hand. Artemis hurried over to Mulch, slightly afraid of getting a paper cut in his eye.

"Mulch, you need to make this quick," Artemis hissed. Mulch shrugged. Flipping through the pad, he came to a stop somewhere in the beginning. Artemis strongly suspected that he had gone around the entire book to seem more professional. He almost snorted.

"Alright Mud Boy, this is what I found out. Holly is apparently in love with James. I'm sorry," he said in response to the downtrodden look on Artemis's face. "The thing is, Juliet is also crazy about James and wants to be his girlfriend. And because Holly likes him too, Juliet is getting all possessive and jealous and she's getting angry."

Here Artemis stopped Mulch. "Wait, why would Juliet be jealous of Holly? And why would she choose to like James even though Holly told her to her face in no uncertain terms that she was absolutely in love with James and would be for the rest of her life?"

Mulch's eyes crossed at the long question. When they uncrossed, he answered. "Who knows why girls do anything?" And anyway, did you choose to fall madly in love with Holly?" Artemis swore.

"I rest my case. Even though I don't have one…" Mulch trailed off, looking thoughtful. Artemis pondered this for a while too, till he remembered he couldn't talk to Mulch for long.

"Okay, Mulch, I would love to think about the conundrum of what you just said, but time is wasting away and someone might notice that I'm talking to a dwarf half in the ground."

Mulch rolled his eyes and continued with his story. "Okay, so I also found out that Juliet liking the same guy as Holly could potentially ruin your relationship with Holly, your relationship with Juliet, their friendship with each other, your friendship with James, and pretty much your relationship with everyone including everyone."

Mulch, finishing his monologue, raised an eyebrow mysteriously. All of a sudden, Artemis heard footsteps behind him.

"OH CRAP!" Mulch screeched, not doing anything at all to hide himself. Artemis slowly turned around, praying that it was Holly, Juliet, Rickey (who pretty much didn't notice anything; he figured he was permanently hallucinating), or Butler (who was still incog in the bushes).

No such luck. It was James.

"Hey, Artemis," James said, flashing Artemis a dazzling smile. Artemis stood up, hoping to hide Mulch from James, while simultaneously making obscene hand gestures at Mulch behind his back, hoping Mulch would get the message and get his ass out of there.

Once again, no such luck.

"What you doing out here? Talking to the trees, I see," James remarked drily. Artemis forced a chuckle. It came out like a screeching cat.

Oh, Artemis. So unsuccessful.

"No I was not. I was practicing my verbal tai chi kung fu tae kwon do ching chang chong li yiao chen chongchong. Of course."

James had an appropriately confused face on. "I've never heard of that particular form of whatever that was supposed to be."

"Hmm. Me either."

An awkward silence followed. James fidgeted a little. Artemis wondered why he didn't just walk away. Artemis looked at him and made eye contact, and saw that James was blushing. James looked away quickly and settled his gaze on the exact spot that Artemis was trying to hide.

"What's, I mean, who's that?" James asked, uncertainly.

Artemis gulped prominently. "Uh, television satellite."

"What?"

'Nothing! Let's just go back to where the others are, kay?"

James looked slightly put out, for reasons that Artemis couldn't understand, but he followed Artemis back to the field just in time for them to hear what Drake's next announcement was.

"Okay, guys. Evidently, Doug is rabid and will probably come back to make another scary visit and I'll be forced to make another lame-ass call to the police, but before that happens let's just go to the park or something. Everyone to the playground!"

They were all trudging up the hill when all of a sudden, who would appear again? No1. Of course he would.

"You have to stop showing up randomly in plain sight in the middle of the day, dammit!" Holly hissed at him, looking pleased he was here nevertheless.

No1 looked sad for a millisecond but then straightened up and smiled. "Hey, guys! I wanna play at the playground with you!"

"Who is this dude?" James asked, confused. "You guys are kind of strange, no offence. Like I feel like Holly is really short."

Artemis was suddenly extremely angry with James for saying that and being the object of affection for pretty much everyone. "Shut up and don't talk about her or to her that way, ever again, ever!" He shouted aggressively.

James physically withdrew his head, thoroughly shocked by this outburst, as did everyone else.

"He's just pointing out the obvious, Artemis," Holly said softly. Juliet glared at Artemis for being mean to James. Artemis glared right back, mad at Juliet for all the wrong (and some right) reasons.

Juliet, seeing this, huffed angrily and took both James and Rickey by the arm and led them away.

James looked back at Artemis, seemingly confused and hurt that he had been like that. Then he winked at Holly. Artemis suddenly had a strong urge to punch James in the face many, many times.

Holly, noticing Artemis's anger, tried to diffuse it by talking to No1. "So, No1, what's been going on? Actually, save that question for later. Can you go see what Juliet is being so weird about?"

No1 shot Holly with finger guns. "Sho thang, sweet thang!" With that, he ran up ahead to find out what the hell was wrong with Juliet.

Artemis found himself walking alone with Holly, but instead talking and joking like they normally would it was just awkward silence. Neither of them knew what to say. Artemis couldn't believe how much Holly liking James was hurting him. He was slowly starting to hate James.

When they arrived at the playground, he silently thanked God for saving him from the awkward silence. He just couldn't believe it… any of it.

At the park, no one seemed to know what to do. All of a sudden, Doug was in their midst! No one even noticed him coming. Justifiably, everyone screamed.

"Hey, guys!" Doug said in a hillbilly voice. "How y'all doin'? I'm doin' just dandy!" He sneezed and powder came out of his nose.

Rickey pointed. "Doug's boogers are weird!"

All of a sudden, Doug morphed into No1! Everyone screamed again, scared out of their minds.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Juliet screeched at No1.

Scared, he screamed right back. "I HAVE NO IDEA, LEAVE ME ALONE! I CAN SHAPESHIFT NOW!" With that, he ran off. Everyone shook off the aftereffects of being in the vicinity of Doug, even if it was fake. Still traumatizing.

All of a sudden, they heard No1's voice call out, "MATRINI APPLEHALLS OVER HERE! ONLY 25 CENTS!"

They looked nervously at each other. "_What _is he selling?"

They walked over to behind the slide, where No1 had set up a small table with the words "Martini Applehalls" written sloppily on a poster that was hastily taped to the front of the table.

"What…?" They asked, not even having words to express their utter bewilderment.

"It's martini applehall! It's like an apple martini, but without alcohol. It has applehall in it. Wanna try it?" He gave them a huge cheesy smile and held out a martini glass filled with what looked like sparkling cider.

"Uh, no thanks," said Juliet. Everyone shook their heads soon after that.

Discouraged and upset, No1 took a sip of his own drink. He promptly exploded, then was pieced back together all in under a minute. They had trouble picking up their jaws off the floor.

"WHOA! Not gonna lie, that hurt. OMYGOD, I forgot about the cameras!" In response to the questioning looks he received, he said, "This is being aired on TV in Tahiti, where there's a party literally all the time!"

He hurried over to a camera that was placed on the slide that none of them had noticed, and placed his hands over the camera lens. "This is NOT kid-safe!"

Artemis was bemused. "You're not acting like yourself, No1," he said. No1 shrugged.

"This is what happens when you drink too much Pepsi!"

Artemis fought back a groan. Why was he at sports camp, again?...

**Yay, that concludes another chapter! Hope you guys enjoyed it! I like how Arty's angsting in the middle :D he's precious. I didn't proofread this chapter, SO sorry if there's really a lot of noticeable mistakes. :(**

**Anyways, thanks for reading! REVIEWWWW!**


	17. Chapter 17

**Hi, people! *smiles and waves* what's up?**

**A few things to say this chapter. First things first: PLEASE STOP TAKING THIS STORY OFF ALERT! *freaks out* please! I beg of you! It makes me really sad :(**

**Next thing! YAY for all of you that are voting on my profile! You guys are awesome! And YES for Remus Lupin getting 6 votes! *cheers* I'm not biased at all… *eyes dart around* *whispers "I love Remus Lupin" feverishly and OCD-ishly***

**I want you guys to read these books. They're my absolute favorite and are amazing. **

**The Trouble With Lemons**** by Daniel M. Hayes**

**The Outsiders**** by S.E. Hinton**

**Answers to anonymous reviews!:**

**Anony: hey, thanks for saying that! :) Artemis is about 15 or 16 in this story. And by AxH slash I mean they'll eventually get together.**

**A: thanks! Me too :D I'll keep writing, don't worry. Thanks for reviewing!  
**

**Writah: Sorry he doesn't seem as sophisticate as he does in the books. I'm going with the assumption that he calms down and loosens up as he gets further into his teen eyars. Thanks for letting me know, though. And yeah, he's kind of a fail at sports :) lol thanks for your review!**

**IMPORTANT MESSAGE AT BOTTOM, FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO LIKE WINNING THINGS! :D**

**That's all for now, enjoy the chapter! :D**

After No1's appalling remark about having too much Pepsi (NO ONE CAN EVER HAVE TOO MUCH PEPSI!), the campers dispersed all over the playground. Juliet went off to the bench to fix her nails, text her friends and take pictures of herself blowing kisses at the camera.

Holly made her way over to the swings to angst.

No1 ran to get more applehall ingredients.

Rickey ran off to the swings also, but for different reasons entirely. He jumped on the swing and proceeded to pump his little legs as hard as he could, causing the swing to fly its highest. Rickey's expression was adorable: exuberant and elated. As he swung up in the air, his tongue flapped out of his mouth kind of like a dog's, and a little foam drifted across the air. Rabies managed to look cute in that moment.

Artemis and James stayed where everyone was standing minutes previously. Watching Rickey's swinging, he chuckled.

"Look at Rickey. Dressgirl's looking at him with somewhat a predatory look on her face…" Artemis snorted. As strange as camp was, he was actually enjoying himself.

James laughed. "Dressgirl? You mean Jade? She wears dresses everyday."

Artemis shot him a disbelieving look. "Are you serious? Hence, the reason we call her Dressgirl."

"Right," James blushed deeply, exuding sheepishness.

"Why are you so weird?" Artemis asked James, completely unaware that this was considered offensive in most people's minds.

James gaped at him. "Excuse me?"

"You know, always blushing and stuttering and being awkward. I met you like two hours ago and you were all relaxed and now you're all weird and strange and don't look comfortable in your own skin."

James could not wipe the shock off his face. He didn't even know what to say. If you asked James any particular question in the world, anything at all, his answer would be "Confused…"

At that moment, Artemis was saved from his terrible social blunder by Cat's arrival. She limped over to them, looking furious.

"Hi, Cat," Artemis said amiably. Cat glowered at him. "I thought you got shot in the ankle."

"I did," she growled at him, glaring at James. James was apprehensive.

"What?" James finally asked.

"Aren't you gonna ask me how I'm walking?"

James shrugged, looking decidedly nervous now. It was time to lay his heart on the table.

"Artemis, I have something to tell you. I like you," he said, rushed. Artemis looked confused, but Cat understood it perfectly.

"What?" they said simultaneously, but in very different tones. Cat's was livid and disbelieving, Artemis's was just plain confused.

"I. Like. You." James sounded out, making it very clear. Artemis stiffened.

"Ignoring what you just said for a second, Do not talk to me in that tone. I am not an imbecile. Now, what I was going to say was, 'Oh. That was extremely unexpected. Unfortunately I do not like you in the same way. I hope this doesn't come between our friendship, if we even are friends.'"

James felt as though he had been slapped in the face as he watched Artemis walk away. He had never felt anything like this…. Till he actually did get slapped.

"HOW COULD YOU? WE _WENT OUT!_ I WAS YOUR _GIRLFRIEND_!" Cat screeched. "AND YOU GO AND TELL HIM YOU LIKE _HIM_? THERE'S RUMORS OF YOU AND LIKE 20 GIRLS AT CAMP!"

James scratched his head and rubbed his cheek where he had been palmed. "What do you mean?"

Cat didn't bother responding, just walked away. James turned around in solitary, startled when he saw Artemis hurtling at him full speed.

As Artemis got closer and closer, he realized he had nothing to say to him. He had to think of something to say to Artemis, soon.

Right as Artemis stopped in front of him, completely out of breath, bending down and leaning on his knees to catch his breath, James, in a complete stupidity, blurted out "Hey baby, what's yo sign?"

Artemis, shocked to the point of heart failure, stood up, breathing issue forgotten. "_What_ did you just say to me?" 

James, flustered, backtracked quickly. "Uh, nothing. Why'd you come back?" he said hopefully, successfully distracting Artemis from what he had just exploded.

"I came back to tell you that neither Holly OR Juliet know you're gay! I mean they both like you! Juliet wants to be your girlfriend and Holly is IN LOVE with you!" Artemis choked on these words and grasped his chest. James had him on the ground about to give him CPR when Artemis quickly sat up and flipped onto his stomach.

"I'm good," he said rapidly. James stood up and offered Artemis a hand, trying not to think about what he had almost done.

"Anyway, you need to tell Holly and Juliet you're not available! They're going to end up killing each other and killing me and Butler and Rickey and my entire family!"

James laughed. "Don't get carried away now," he chuckled and struck a pose. "I'm not that amazing." 

Artemis rolled his eyes. "I know," he said, making James deflate a little. "But Holly and Juliet seem to think so, so we have to go tell them. Now."

They turned around to look for both Holly and Juliet so they could set them straight, but didn't see them anywhere in sight.

James scanned the playground. "Where could they have gone?"

Juliet, in the meantime, had been mauled by No1 (in a friendly way). They were currently roaming the grounds. No1, sensing that they had some alone time, decided to figure out what was wrong with Juliet.

"What's wrong, Juliet?" he asked gently. Internally he giggled. He was never good at sentimental stuff.

"It's everything!" she threw her hands up in exasperation and sighed.

"Tell me," No1 ordered nicely.

Juliet nodded. "Well, I like James and Holly like Artemis but James is going out with Cat I think and Cat already wants me dead so I'm afraid and also Artemis keeps being so mean to me! I honestly don't know what I did. It's making me so upset. Arty's never been so angry at me!"

No1 pondered this. The entire time he had been at camp he hadn't noticed any particular stand-outish animosity between the two, but he decided to believe the girl. She normally had her crap together so he figured she could be trusted.

"If I were you, I'd go up to that jerk and slap him a good one!" No1 demonstrated on Juliet, who gasped indignantly and slapped No1 right back immediately.

"What the hell, demon!" she cried. He looked up at her from the ground.

"I'm probably apple-d." He stood up, grabbed Juliet's limp hand, and shook it vigorously for 30 seconds straight. "Hello, I'm No1 Smith, and I'm an appleholic."

Juliet ripped her hand away. "Okay, little man, go see a doctor Seriously, you have issues." Just as Juliet was about to haul No1 down to the nurse, Z's, office, a kid passed her.

"Excuse me," the kid said politely. Juliet stepped aside, then did a double-take.

"OMYGOD, WHERE ARE YOUR CLOTHES?" She screeched at the kid, who was walking around butt-naked except for a towel wrapped tightly around his waist.

She noticed that the kid was Adam. Adam looked down at his body questioningly, then gasped and screamed. "HOLY CRAP!" He roared, and then ran off as fast as he could.

No1 and Juliet just stood there, astonished at what they had just seen. Soon, like 5 seconds later, Adam returned to where they were standing and stood next to them nonchalantly, not saying anything.

"Honey," Juliet said soothingly and quietly. Adam looked up at her, face open and innocent. "Where are you clothes?"

Adam looked down at himself again. "I'm not sure… maybe my mom forgot to send me with clothes today." 

No1 scoffed. "That's just silly. Everyone knows that Tuesday's 'No Clothes' day at camp, not Monday!"

Juliet rolled her eyes and said to Adam, "Don't listen to him. He's delusional. Anyway, I know you have clothes because you were wearing them earlier. And besides, I don't think your mom forgot to send you with them. She has at least 11 kids. Especially you should be able to dress yourself alone by now."

Adam nodded guiltily. "You're right. I left them underneath the bleachers." Juliet shooed him away.

"Well then, go get them and put them on!" she exclaimed, steering No1 towards Z's office.

Meanwhile, Holly had slinked off the swings to go sit under the Multisport tree, to angst in a more secluded area.

Holly picked up a leaf and started shredding it down the vein in the center. When this was finished, she picked up another leaf and repeated the action… over and over again.

_Why won't he talk to me? Give me a sign he liked me back? It feels like he doesn't even know me… know I exist. I can't believe I'm feeling like a teenage girl! _

Holly angrily punched her thigh in frustration. _I hate the way he makes me feel, all jittery and young again inside. Although maybe it's a nice feeling… I can't tell. I need him to know…_

**And here concludes another chapter! ( I think I said that at the end of last chapter too… eh whatever. I can be unoriginal if I want to.) This chapter probably isn't that good, considering I had no idea what to write. **

**This chapter came to me today while I was in Latin class, so it might be a little jumbled because as I was writing it as I was also conjugating verbs and stuffs. So sorry if it's not understandable!  
**

**ANYWAYS! IMPORTANT! This chapter is another chance for a reviewer to get to choose something that will happen! Since it's almost to 200 reviews and I give a prize when I get to another hundreds place, I have decided that this chapter, whoever sends in the best review gets to think of what they want to have happen in the next chapter. **

**This best review has to make me laugh, be really nice, or just awesome. I think there'll be two winners, actually. So please review, and maybe you'll win! :)**

**Thanks for reading, guys! REVIEWWWWW! :D**


	18. Chapter 18

**Hi, guys! Here's another chapter for all you awesome people :D**

**So, number one thing that was kinda funny: so in a review, a person asked me if I had read ****Diary of a Wimpy Kid****, which I had, but it got the book in my head for the day. Conveniently, I had my English summer reading exam that day. Thinking I was prepared, I went to write the essay in English class.**

**I was writing an awesome introduction until I realized that I had forgotten the main character's name. because I had been thinking about Diary of a wimpy kid and it was in my head, I thought the name was Greg, so that's what I wrote throughout my essay.**

**Turns out his name was Scott. **

**Lol, what a mess. Cracked me up, though :)**

**Anyways, I just thought you guys would enjoy that. Onto the chapter, enjoy! :)**

**Oh, one more thing: song that is awesome: "Haven't met you yet" by Michael Buble**

**Okay, now REALLY onto the chapter :)**

Holly continued tearing leaves apart. It was helping her think and giving her something destructive but safe to do.

After tearing apart a few more thousand leaves, she spotted both Artemis and James appearing from a distance out from behind the huge bush separating multisport field from soccer. Before they could spot her, she darted over to the bleachers behind the tree so they wouldn't find her.

She didn't want to see either of them at the moment. Holly had come to a very important decision. She was going to tell Artemis that she liked (and was possibly in love with him, whatever love was) him. It was a pretty life-changing decision, you know. Which is the precise reason that she needed to tell him for her.

Holly wasn't normally a coward. However, she was letting herself known, laying her heart on the ground for the whole world to see, both above ground and below.

"Hey, hey, girlfriend!" A high voice shouted about two feet from her head. Holly screamed in surprise, and whipped around to see who had greeted her in such a strange way.

It was Adam.

"Oh, hey, Adam, what's- OH MY CRAPPIN' GOD, WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOUR FLIPPIN FLOPPITY CLOTHES!" Adam raised his eyebrows.

"Okay, Holly, I understand your apparent fetish with using British swear words, but seriously by the end they weren't even words. Please revise your virtual dictionary of British cusses and then try again." 

Holly shook her head to clear the confusion out of it. She had a right to be confused though. She was receiving a British grammar lesson from a naked-except-for-a-towel eleven year old.

What's that? You wouldn't be confused, you say?

Yeah, you would. Just shut up. Don't even try.

"Adam. Ignoring your strangely mature educational monologue for just a second, I'm serious. Where are your clothes? In this society, you kind of need clothes. Like, REALLY need them. I promise. I'm not just pulling your arm or toe or whatever the saying is."

Adam sighed. "I know. That's what Juliet just told me. She was walking around with some weird little kid who looked kinda like Quasimodo… it was scary. Anyway," he gestured towards the bleachers where Holly was sitting, "you're kind of sitting on my clothes."

Holly quickly stood up and looked down. She was indeed sitting on a brown T-shirt and white lacrosse shorts. She picked them up gingerly and quickly handed them to Adam.

"Here. Why aren't you wearing them, anyway?"

"I wasn't feeling free enough. Drake told me it was a free country when I asked him if it was okay for me to beat the living crap outta this kid with a baseball bat, but I wasn't feeling free enough."

Holly was stricken. "Uhm, that's a great story. Here's a wild idea: do the exact opposite of what Drake tells you to do. Do not listen to him. You WILL end up in jail if you do."

Adam nodded sagely. "Sounds good to me. Hey, can you turn around while I put on my clothes?"

Holly turned her back as Adam dressed, gazing over the field. She turned back around when Adam tapped her on the shoulder. Relieved to find he was dressed once again, she had a sudden idea.

"You're one of eleven children, right?" Holly asked.

Adam shook his head. "Nope, fifteen."

"But I thought- you know, never mind. The point is, you can be trusted, right?"

Adam grinned. "'Course! What do ya want me to do?"

Holly debated with herself for a half second. Did she really want Artemis to know?

Yeah, she did.

"Okay, here's what I want you to do…"

Meanwhile, Juliet and No1 had decided to return to the soccer fields, where they were staying from now on since Mickey apparently had left for the Jersey Shore since the Situation needed a stand in since he had ripped his bicep off by accident in a fit of 'roid rage, and Doug was, well, Doug.

So, Greg was helping Drake out for the rest of the day.

When Juliet and No1 got to the soccer fields, they noticed there was only about fifteen kids there as opposed to the fifty that had been there a half hour ago during the soccer game.

Out of nowhere, Drake appeared in front of Juliet.

Frantically as a reflex, Juliet ripped a fly swatter out of her backpack that was conveniently lying on the ground at her feet and slapped Drake with it many times.

"STAY BACK! PERSONAL SPACE IS THE FIRST CHAPTER IN JULIET'S BOOK FOR PEOPLE WHO DON'T WANT TO GET BEAT DOWN!"

Drake stumbled back a few yards, then recovered and lumbered back over to Juliet and No1.

Ignoring what Juliet had just said, Drake prepared to say what he was going to say before Juliet assaulted him with a fly swatter.

"Where did you go? Where did everyone else go? WHERE?" Drake screeched, suddenly looking pretty deranged.

"Oh, please, calm your ass down. They're just roaming the grounds."

Drake frowned. "You're not allowed to say "ass" at sports camp!"

Juliet rolled her eyes contemptuously. "Fine. Calm your_ arse_ down."

Drake sat for a second and thought. "… I guess that's okay then."

"And anyway, you need to calm down. It's just a few kids running around looking for fun."

Drake looked nervous again. "I think you're forgetting where you are. This is SPORTS CAMP. Probably the worst-run program ANYWHERE on the globe. And at least one of the campers is rabid, one thinks he's a squirrel, and who knows what goes on in these kids heads?"

Juliet gasped. "Oh, my god! Rickey! I need to go get him!"

Just as Juliet ran off with No1 in tow, James and Artemis rounded the bend again into soccer camp. They had missed Juliet and No1 by literally a half second. (Not really, but who cares about exact times if it's not the Olympics?)

Artemis and James rushed over to Drake, who was just standing there with a dumbfounded expression his face. "Where are Holly and Juliet? We can't find them anywhere!"

Drake lit up. "I just saw Juliet!"

Artemis rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Well, are you going to tell us where she went?"

Drake nodded dumbly. "She went thataway." He pointed confidently in the exact opposite direction that Juliet and No1 had gone, from which James and Artemis had just appeared.

James face palmed. "Dude. We just came from that way. She obviously did not go that way. We would have passed her."

Artemis looked at James with a strange look on his face. "Wow, who would've thought you were capable of logic?" James whacked him upside the head.

"Shut up," he ordered. Artemis laughed, then turned back to Drake.

"If you see either of them, TELL US. Or I will sic my Butler on you. His nickname is 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre'. You do not want him after you."

With that, they walked away. They heard Drake call after them, "It's not my fault I'm directionally challenged!"

"I think he's just everything challenged," Artemis said. James agreed.

After a few moments, James shot Artemis a look.

"You do realize that 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' is a movie, right?"

Artemis nodded. "Yeah. With any luck, he won't realize that. Right now, we just need to concentrate on finding them."

James gazed off in the distance. "You really like Holly, don't you," he said as more of a statement than a question.

Artemis glanced at him, then ahead again. "Yeah, I do," he said softly.

James clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder. "Don't worry, mate, we'll find her and set her straight."

Artemis groaned. "Yeah, I know. But that's not the problem. The problem is that even when she learns the truth, she'll still like you. It's not like you just immediately stop liking someone the second you find out they're unavailable."

James's face took on a pensive quality. "That's not necessarily true. I think I'm just about over you."

"Really?"

James smiled a little.

"Yep."

"Good, I'm glad to hear it," Artemis remarked, pleased with how things were turning out. "Now, let's go find them."

Before they could take another step, a small body ran into Artemis.

"Artemis! Artemis!" the little figure was screaming.

Artemis lifted up the person and set him back a few paces. He got a look at the kid. It was Adam.

"Hi, Adam. Why are you being so enthusiastically scary right now?" Adam giggled.

"I have a message from Holly! For you, Artemis!" Adam squeaked, slightly out of breath. Artemis looked at James, who also looked curious.

"What kind of message?" Artemis inquired. "And where is she, anyway?"

Adam, ignoring the second question, bounced up and down excitedly.

"Holly wants me to tell you that, she, Holly Short, likes you, Artemis Fowl, as more than a friend!"

Artemis was shocked. Then he felt something rising in his chest. He couldn't really identify the feeling… it wasn't foreign, just unexpected and unidentifiable as of yet.

A few moments later, Artemis had identified the strange feeling that had been caused by Adam's message.

It was anger.

**Yay, end of chapter! Ohhhh, why is he angry? OMJIZZLE what a cliffhanger :) I'm so mean to you guys. And it makes me SO HAPPY! Lol wow that sounded pretty bad. But I mean it's fun to make you guys freak out. **

**Anyways, please review! If I get a substantial and acceptable amount of reviews this week, I'll try to update before Sunday! :D**

**Anyways, I'm really sorry I didn't respond to reviews, but thanks for them! I was just really busy. **

**Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, REVEWWWW!**


	19. Chapter 19

**Heyy guys! Sup, y'all? **

**First things first! Best song EVER: 'Savior' by Rise Against. Literally, it's awesome. Like I'm so obsessed (unhealthily so) that I listen to it on the bus, at lunch, in the hall between classes, at home… my friends are calling me antisocial lol but it's just so good! So listen to it. I heard about it from That One Genius. He's awesome so go favorite him and read his stories and yah. :)**

**Other news! My school is out of its mind. Example (and I am not lying right now) yesterday in social studies we watched a sped-up video of members of the Siberian Chukchi clan herd reindeer while listening to inspiring techno music. Today, we were tested on said movie. I had to write two essays. I wrote about how buffalo shaped the culture of the Native Americans in the southwest. I am not expecting an amazing grade.**

**Another example: my Italian teacher is oblivious. My friend will just get up in the middle of class and walk out of the room, come back fifteen minutes later, and the teacher won't even notice. This is the same teacher that calls me "Barbie", by the way.**

**Ahh, school. What a place.**

**OMG I'm watching '**_**Halloween**_**' with my friends in a few hours! I am SO excited since I haven't seen a scary movie in like 500 years (not literally, you silly person! :D)**

**Anyways, here's the new chapter! Enjoy! :D**

James studied Artemis's face as Adam dropped the bomb of news. Oddly enough, his face kind of looked as though he was livid. Like he kind of wanted to rip someone's head off.

James was confused. Wasn't this a good thing? Before he could ask Artemis anything, he stalked off back towards the soccer field. Adam started to run after him to tell him again (as if Artemis hadn't heard), but James grabbed him and tossed him in the bushes. He didn't need Adam there when he confronted Artemis. Artemis might kill him.

Quickly covering Adam with leaves (as though that would hold him in place), James ran after Artemis. Just before Artemis got to the soccer fields, James caught up with him. He stepped in front of Artemis.

What he saw in Artemis's face shocked him. Although he saw prominent anger, he also saw hurt and loss. Taking Artemis by the arm, he led him off to the building.

Artemis tried to pull his arm away. 

"What are you doing?" He asked James, his voice slightly rough. James didn't respond. They finally came to a stop inside the gym. They sat down next to each other on the floor, backs against the wall.

"Okay, man. What's going on? You just told me you really like Holly. And now you get news from a little flea that whaddya know, she likes you too! And you freak out. Tell you what. To get you happy again, I'm gonna throw a party!" James exclaimed. Throughout his speech, he hadn't noticed Artemis's facial expression changing.

Artemis looked at him incredulously. "Throw a party? Where, out the window?"

James blinked. "What?"

Artemis sighed angrily. "You don't get it, do you? No, you don't. You don't get a DAMN THING." James glanced at Artemis, who was glaring at him. He was thoroughly confused by now.

"Stop talking in riddles. Seriously."

Artemis stood up and walked over to the gym office where some random counselors were hanging around.

"Excuse me," he said, his voice radiating polite rage. They looked up at him.

"OH, look! It's that kid from before, the one who's allergic to water!" Artemis was surprised that they remembered.

"Yeah, that's me. It would have been more helpful if you had remembered that while I was in the actual pool, but whatever's convenient, right?"

They shot him annoyed looks. "Look, kid, if you're gonna be ungrateful…" Artemis rolled his eyes.

"Of course I'm going to be ungrateful. Why should be grateful for anything that's happened at this camp? Anyway, this is not why I came here. I need you guys to kill that idiot over there." 

They all stood up and looked at James. "By that idiot, do you mean James?"

"Yes."

"Oh."

"…"

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go kill him."

"No thank you."

"Oh my god. I hate my life."

After that horrible conversation, Artemis walked back over to James, his anger mounting with every step.

He sat down with a huff next to James. James looked at him.

"Okay, did you just tell them to murder me?"

Artemis nodded.

"Well, okay then. That's friendly. Anyway, really. Tell me what's up, cuz this isn't normal behavior in this kind of situation."

After a pause, "You really wanna know? Really?" James nodded emphatically.

"Okay. I'll tell you. You want to know why I'm pissed as hell? Holly. I can't believe she would do this. I mean, I've done some pretty rotten things to her, but I've apologized and I thought she'd gotten over it. But I guess not." James was once again confused.

"I don't understand! Please, just tell me already! I can help!"

"I'M TELLING YOU, DAMNIT! I know she likes you! I know! I heard her tell Juliet! And don't tell me that I heard wrong, because I didn't. You're you, so of course she would like you. But really, enlisting a little kid to go tell me that she suddenly likes _me?_ _WHAT THE HELL?_ I knew she could be mean sometimes, but I've been her friend and never been on the receiving end. Seriously, I didn't know she'd stoop this low. Getting a little kid to lie for her to me about her fake feelings for me when I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT SHE LIKES YOU! OH MY GOD, I CAN'T TRUST ANYONE IN THIS WORLD, CAN I! NO! BECAUSE BETRAYAL IS ALL YOU GET. I JUST CAN'T BELIEVE IT. SO DON'T THINK FOR A SECOND THAT YOU CAN HELP IN THIS BECAUSE YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM."

Artemis stopped shouting at James, looking down at him. He hadn't remembered standing up, but there he was.

Suddenly embarrassed, he sat back down and brought his knees up to his chest, dropping his head in his hands.

James just sat there, not wanting to upset Artemis any further. He decided it would be best if he let Artemis initiate the conversation on this one.

After a long time of sitting in silence, Artemis lifted his head up out of his hands. His eyes were a little red, but his face was curiously dry with no sign of tears. James tentatively looked at him, but saw no traces of the anger that he had possessed a while ago.

"What was that?" he asked softly, ignoring his plans earlier of keeping quiet.

Artemis drew a deep breath. "I'm just pretty upset. I'm surprised I let my emotions get the better of me. I didn't mean to yell. I'm sorry."

James clapped him lightly on the shoulder. "No need to apologize, mate. We'll just go whip Holly a good one for toying with you." Artemis ripped his shoulder away in dismay.

"No! I mean, sure I'm angry and hurt, but I don't want to _hurt_ her. Psychological revenge is more my speed."

"What?"

"My way."

"Oh, okay, cuz when you said 'speed' I thought-"

"Yes, James, we all know what you thought. Let's just get back to the soccer fields." Artemis wearily got up, followed by James, and they started walking back to the soccer fields.

Meanwhile, Juliet and No1 were still looking for Rickey. Where could he have gone?

As they walked throughout camp looking for Rickey, Juliet and No1 were having a conversation. A very agitating conversation.

"So then I was all 'You can't say that, I'm a demon, that's offensive!' and they all like didn't care, so I like zapped them into Limbo! And I gave them pimply zits and warts so now they're eternally ugly."

"That's just horrible, No1."

"Don't tell the Feds, girlie!"

This kind of conversation had been going on for the past twenty minutes or so while they looked for Rickey. Juliet was ready to shoot herself (or better yet No1).

"Okay, No1, no one can have a sugar rush for this long. You really need to drop it."

"NEVER! If I were to drop it, I would have to go to a party first which would make me tired which would make me crash. But it would have to be a really good party. OMYGOD know where they have the best partays ever? SANTA'S GROTTO!"

Juliet grabbed the ends of her hair and pulled, eliciting a sharp cry from her lips. She needed the pain to clear her head of the need to kill No1.

"WHERE'S RICKEY?" She roared in desperation. She needed to find Rickey! The kid had really grown on her, rabies and all. His light green eyes lit up when he smiled and his soft longish brown hair hung in his eyes, perfectly straight. He was an adorable kid.

"Oh, look, there he is!" No1 cried, pointing and wearing what was without a doubt the stupidest grin Juliet had ever seen. She followed No1's arm down to his hand down to his fingerly direction and across to where Rickey was!

Rickey noticed them and jumped up, running towards Juliet who put out her arms that he ran into.

"Rickey! Why'd you run off? Was it because I'm fat?"

Rickey, who looked like he was about to say something apologetic, stopped in confusion. "What? NO! Where did that even come from?"

"The lipids in our body systems. Lipids are fatty acids that make fatty asses."

Rickey was dumbfounded, but shook it off. He shrugged guiltily. " I have no idea what your talking about, but I'm sorry, Julietty! I'm just not used to having someone care about me!"

Hearing Rickey say that broke Juliet's heart and she hugged him even tighter. "Well, those days are over."

Rickey smiled at her, eyes shining. "Thanks."

Concurrently, Holly was growing more and more nervous as the time passed and Adam failed to show up, as did any of her other friends.

Ten minutes later, she saw Adam running up to her. She started to rise to greet him, but stopped in confusion when she saw what he looked like.

When he came to a stop in front of her, she took a better look at him. He was covered in dirt, leaves, and bruises. She decided to ask him about his physical state later.

"Well? She asked eagerly. "What happened?"

Adam tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Well, he was with James when I told him. I told him that you liked him as more than a friend."

Holly sat forward eagerly, adrenaline and hope and nerves racing through her. "And what did he say? What happened after that?"

Adam paused. He really didn't know how to tell this to Holly. He didn't know much about relationships, being eleven, but he knew enough to know that this would hurt.

"He didn't actually say anything. He looked really angry. Then he walked away."

Holly froze. He had rejected her. She had been rejected. She couldn't move. Had he really done that? Why, though? Had Juliet been reading the signs wrong? Had Holly? She didn't know, all she knew was that she could never be friends with Artemis again.

**WHOA DRAMA ANGST LOTS OF OTHER STUFF TOO! And here's another chapter :D I hope I get more reviews than last time :( please, guys? Review? For me? Thanks :)**

**Anyways, thanks for reading! REVIEWWW! :D**


	20. Chapter 20

**Hi, guys! We meet again for the last time!**

**That's right, this is the last chapter! And I made it super long, over 4,000 words, just for you guys! :)**

**Omg, I know someone who looks JUST like Arty, black hair, blue eyes, intense features… gah. :D**

**Anyway, since it's the last chapter, I would REALLY appreciate if you guys reviewed. I had a bad week and an even worse day, so it would mean a lot to me. I had to go to the doctor at 7 am today because of something I've had all week. He gave me a shot in an unwanted place. I ended up bursting into tears, and it just ruined my entire day. :( so, Reviews would be greatly appreciated! :D**

**Answers to anonymous reviews for the *gasp* last time!:**

**Finnick4ever: thanks! I hope you enjoy the last chapter! And just so you know, I love Finnick :D thanks for reviewing!**

**JesusFreak137: thanks for the insight. Thanks for the comment about my writing/grammar/spelling. That made me really happy :) thanks for reviewing!**

**And now, onto the last chapter! ENJOY! AND REVIEW! :D**

They had almost reached the soccer fields when James suddenly stopped walking. Artemis stopped too and looked inquisitively at him.

James looked into space for a second, and then clapped his hands once. He started walking backwards as he said, "You know what the first step to talking to Holly would be? Talking to Juliet. After all she's the one who Holly actually confided in."

Before Artemis could protest that no, he did not want to talk to either Holly or Juliet pretty much ever again, James had turned on his heel and was jogging swiftly away from him. Artemis heaved a high, frustrated sigh and threw his hands up in defeat.

Knowing he couldn't stop James and not really even having the proper energy to do it, Artemis continued on his way to the soccer fields, downtrodden.

When he got there, he walked over to Drake, the only person on the field. Drake was frantically searching for all the kids. Artemis sighed again. Had Drake even thought of searching the rest of the camp for the kids?

Not a chance.

Walking up to Drake, Artemis uttered, "Hello, Drake."

Seeing Artemis, Drake instantly clutched his hair and violently blew air from between his lips. Stepping back and wiping spit from his face in disgust, Artemis shot Drake a look. Drake didn't notice.

"OHMYGOD! Do you know where any of the kids went? I can't find them anywhere!" Drake was screaming, as usual. It seemed that as Doug was out of the picture, Drake had resumed his place as resident crazy person.

In fact, Artemis, peering closer to make sure he wasn't mistaken, Drake had some foam around his mouth and bloodshot, bulging eyes.

"Drake, did Rickey bite you too? Or Doug?" Drake shook his head.

"No, why?"

"You look like you have rabies, like with your eyes and, you know, foaming mouth."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Once again monstrously frustrated, Artemis threw his hands up in the air. "UGH! This camp is so stupid! I can't believe I ever agreed to this thing in the first place. I mean, what was I thinking? It feels like I've been here my entire life! I feel old."

Drake scratched his head thoughtfully. "Actually, you've only been here for a day. Specifically, about 6 or 7 hours."

Artemis nodded pensively. "Hey, you're right. Funny how a day fits into 20 frickin chapters, right?"

Drake nodded in agreement. "I know, right? This author has to have mad skillz, even though we're at sports camp and haven't actually played a sport in about 7 chapters. You modern kids and your drama."

" Hey! I don't mean to cause drama, it just found me somehow. I'm not really concerned with the whole 'no sports thing', I'm kind of happy with it.

And, hell yeah, the author does have mad skillz! She deserves SO many reviews! At least 300. That's what I'm hoping for. Because she's so awesome and had a really bad day, you know. Blondes aren't supposed to have bad days, it's written in the Code of Blondes. Like, they really do have more fun and all that stuff." Artemis sympathized.

"Totally."

Artemis was about to respond once more, but was instead mauled by, effectively cutting off his stream of speech considering his face was currently in the process of being shoved painfully into the ground. Details, details.

MEANWHILE….

James, knowing the day was almost over, knew he couldn't leave everyone like this. Artemis just HAD to get with Holly, and he needed to let Juliet know he couldn't be with her, officially apologize to Cat (he had never actually even broken up with her, and had told another person he liked them. He would be upset if he was her too), kill Adam, kill No1, and just be ready when the sh!t goes down.

Running all over the camp, he finally found Juliet, Rickey, and No1 having a tearful conversation. Well, Juliet and Rickey were having a tearful exchange, and No1 was doing something unusual.

James, relieved, walked up to them. He opened his mouth and was about to start speaking when No1 suddenly retched violently.

James, shocked, jumped back to avoid the flow of barf coming his way.

"NO1, WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE YOU DOING!" James shouted, seething.

No1 shrugged. "I was simply seeing how far I could expand my pallet. Clearly, it expands to the point of hitting my rooster gobble punching bag thing located at the back of my throat the wrong way. Hypothesis successful."

James rolled his eyes, too annoyed to be even worried about No1's mental stability.

Shoving No1 roughly out of the way, he stepped in front of Juliet and Rickey. He bent down to Rickey's ear.

Taking in Rickey's more bloodshot eyes than normal and extra foamy mouth, he wrote these things off as just overexcitement and put them out of his mind.

"Rickey, I need to talk to Juliet in private for a little while. Think you can keep an eye on No1 while we talk and make sure he doesn't commit homicide or something else highly expected from someone of the likes of him?"

Rickey nodded slowly. Dislodging himself from Juliet's grip, he walked lethargically over to the conveniently placed ditch that No1 had fallen into. Sitting on the floor, he listened to James and Juliet's conversation.

"I'm just gonna get right to the point," James said, wringing his hands together. "I'm gay, so we can't ever be together." Juliet visibly crumpled, then straightened back up thirty seconds later.

"Well, that's kind of shocking. But I guess I'll eventually get over it."

James shot a grin at her. "Glad to hear it." Juliet winced.

"Just don't smile at me like that." James nodded nervously and decided to continue his story.

"Uh, okay. Sorry. Anyway, we need to talk Holly and Artemis."

Juliet was confused. "What about them? They together yet?"

James rolled his eyes in disbelief. "Are you serious? They aren't even on speaking terms right now, and you and I are a huge part of the reason why." Juliet gaped at him. 

"Wait, what are you talking about? This had nothing to do with us."

Chuckling, James answered. "Oh, yes it does. Artemis thinks that you like me, which you do, er did. And he thought you were blatantly stabbing Holly in the back by outwardly showing that you liked me, so Artemis became angry with you."

"How exactly would that be stabbing Holly in the back? She doesn't even like you like that!"

James shook his head. "I don't know why he thinks that, but he says he overheard you guys talking about how much Holly liked 'James'. We just assumed it was me."

Confusion, then realization then exasperation appeared on Juliet's face in quick succession. She slapped the side of her face in frustration.

"NO! 'James' was Artemis's CODE NAME! We made it up before we even MET you at soccer camp so before she told him she liked him he wouldn't know it was him we were talking about! Damn, this is so messed up."

Comprehension dawned on James face just as fast as he heard Juliet. "Oh my god, that's terrible! Because Artemis is pretty much in love with Holly, but thinks she's in love with me, and when Holly made Adam go tell Artemis about her feelings for him-"

Here an incredulous Juliet interrupted him. "She asked ADAM to be the messenger? Okay, that's gotta be one of her stupider decisions."

"Shut up. Anyway, Artemis then thought she was mocking him because he was under the impression that she was SO in love with me and was just rubbing it in his face that she 'didn't like him' and now he's livid with her and she's probably wallowing in self-despair because she was rejected by the only person she's ever loved like this."

"Okay, I like can't even think right now. This is so complicated and weird and just strange that I can't even try to understand it." James let out a brief, humorless bark of laughter.

"You will try to understand it, because they NEED to get together. I mean, seriously. This is worse than when Draco broke Harry's nose just 'cause he wanted to."

Juliet seemed to remember that these were characters from the Harry Potter series. "Oh, I know Harry! Occulus Repairo, and all that stuff," She remarked, waving a stick she had picked up of the ground. Immediately after she said these words, James had on round wire-rimmed glasses.

He ripped them off. "I don't even wear glasses! How the hell did these even get on my face? And that isn't a magic wand! Oh, whatever. All I know is we need to help them. Now. Let's go."

Turning around to go look for Holly, James started striding away. Juliet went over to go pick up Rickey so they could follow him.

"Let's go, sweetie," she said, lifting up Rickey off the ground. He laid his head on her shoulder tiredly. She bounced him slightly a couple times.

"You okay?" She asked. He nodded.

"Just tired and don't really feel well." Juliet crooned in sympathy.

"Don't worry little man, we'll get you some help in a little while." Rickey nodded once more, beginning to nibble and gnaw on his fingers. Juliet was confused by his odd behavior but decided to leave it until the whole 'Holly and Artemis Affair' was straightened out.

Shooting a last look at No1, Juliet decided to leave him here. No offence to him, but he would probably just mess everything up for absolutely everyone. She strode off after James without a backwards glance.

Juliet and Rickey finally found James and Holly sitting on the bleachers by the multisport fields. Running up to them, Juliet quickly deposited Rickey on the ground who promptly fell over and laid in the grass, not sitting up.

Juliet didn't notice this and just went up and sat on the bleachers with James and Holly.

Holly looked like a mess. There were traces of tear tracks down her face and it was all puffy. She had hiccups.

Juliet put her arm around Holly while James looked on sympathetically.

"I heard about what happened," Juliet said softly, not really knowing how to start now that she was actually with Holly.

Holly, who looked like she had been about to collect herself somewhat, brought her knees up and hugged them, her eyes rolling back into her head as they closed and filled with tears.

Juliet and James both hugged her supportively; not saying anything for a few minutes, just letting her let it all out. They knew it was almost unheard of for Holly to cry like this, even James knew that after only a day of knowing Holly.

When Holly had finished, she picked her head back up off her knees and looked at them slightly apologetically. "Sorry about that. I hate crying in front of people. Actually I hate crying in general. I normally try to avoid it at all costs."

James and Juliet nodded sympathetically. Holly, deciding she couldn't take any more sympathy, quickly changed the subject to a something a little more painful.

"So you heard what happened," she started. They nodded, then James launched into explanation vigorously.

"Yeah, we know what happened but Holly! It was just one big misunderstanding!"

Holly glared at him. "Misunderstanding? He outright rejected me! How much of that could possibly be misunderstood?"

Juliet rolled her eyes. "Apparently a lot. Member when we made up Artemis's code name and it was 'James'?" Holly nodded, wondering where this could possibly be going.

Juliet continued at Holly's nod. "To make a long, painful story short, Artemis overheard our conversation and thought you were in love with a person named James. We had no way of knowing there was a James at camp already, since we hadn't met him yet. When Artemis met James, he automatically assumed that he was the James you were in love with. He thought that when you sent Adam to tell him, that you were mocking him about how you really loved me."

Holly blinked. "That was so not the shortened version, I just know it."

"Oddly enough, it is. I had to shorten it because our audience is probably becoming bored with hearing it explained 5 zillion times. But that's irrelevant! Now let's go find Artemis and straighten all this crapola out!" Juliet leapt off the bleachers with James and they waited for Holly to join them.

Holly hadn't moved from her depressed position. Juliet sighed noisily and hopped back up the bleachers. Grabbing Holly's hand forcefully, she leapt down the bleachers again. Lucky for Holly, Holly's face wasn't slammed on the way down, which had been entirely possible considering she completely left the ground as they jumped down.

Scooping up Rickey once more, Juliet sprinted over to the soccer fields where Artemis probably was.

Seeing him talking to Drake, she lightly dropped Rickey on the ground and ran full force at Artemis.

WHICH BRINGS US TO THE CURRENT TURN OF EVENTS…

"ARTEMIS!" Juliet shrieked, jamming his face into the dirt.

"Mmmph!" Came Artemis's indignant non-reply. Juliet laughed as she got off him and stood up, running back over to Holly to lead her to where Artemis was.

Giggling furiously, Juliet shoved Holly towards Artemis, causing her to fall into him. Both Holly and Artemis glared at Juliet for creating an awkward moment in an already horrifically awkward situation.

"You crazy kids have fun! And remember, TALK THINGS OUT." With that, Juliet ran off to where James had knelt down next to Rickey. For the first real time, Juliet noticed that Rickey wasn't looking so good.

Holly looked at Artemis and Artemis looked at Holly. Both blushed scarlet and looked away quickly. All of a sudden, Holly gave a great heaving sigh.

"Look, Artemis. We're going to have to talk about it sometime or another. Let's just get it over with."

"Yeah, just get it over with!" Drake said enthusiastically, who everyone had forgotten was standing right there.

Suddenly infuriated, Artemis lost his temper. "DRAKE, GET THE - AWAY!" Everyone's jaw dropped and their eyes popped as they heard Artemis swear in such a manner. Artemis shrugged sheepishly.

"What, I'm a fifteen year old boy, I can say these things. Probably. Anyway, Drake, please. We are trying to have a serious conversation here, so please, just go away."

Drake sniffed, his nose high in the air. "Well, I know when I'm not wanted. I'll just be going now." He flounced off.

Holly shook her head. "At least he's gone," she said. Artemis chuckled quietly.

"Yeah," he said awkwardly, mentally slapping himself with his lack of conversational skills. He rubbed the back of his neck bashfully, looking at the ground. "Sorry for the language there."

Holly laughed. "Don't even worry about it. It was so justified I couldn't have said it better myself."

Artemis gazed at Holly. "Let's sit. We need to talk."

Holly almost said, "No, really?" but decided against it. It wasn't the time for sarcasm.

They walked over to the bleachers and sat on the bench side by side. They turned to each other.

Neither of them seemed keen on starting first. Holly took a deep breath and threw caution to the wind, starting the conversation to the wind.

"Juliet said that you thought I loved James and that I was making fun of you when I told Adam to tell you that I liked you," Holly began tentatively.

Artemis nodded. "I had overheard your conversation with Juliet about liking James, but didn't realize James was a code name."

Holly didn't respond.

Artemis stared at the ground, then raised his gaze to look up at her from underneath his long black eyelashes. "It… it really was a code name for me?" He asked softly, his voice filled with quiet hope.

Holly turned her gaze to him and smiled. "Yes, it was. And about the message from Adam, I really wasn't lying. I really, really like you."

She bit her lip, blood pounding in her ears. Now she was about to hear the real answer from the real actual person sitting across from her.

She felt a finger underneath her chin and looked straight into Artemis's deep blue eyes. "Well then," he began. Holly held her breath. Artemis chuckled.

"Well then," he repeated, his voice now filled with happiness. "That's a good thing. A really good thing, because I like you too. In fact, I think I love you."

Holly was filled to the brim with happiness. She felt as though a bubble filled with bright white light had burst inside her, releasing elation and bliss into her very being.

"I love you too," she whispered, and then felt herself getting closer to Artemis, felt Artemis getting closer to her, and they kissed.

They kissed for a while longer before Artemis abruptly stood up and grabbed Holly's hand. Slightly disoriented, she looked up at him.

"Come on, stand up. You and me are going to dance."

Holly giggled. "Dance? There's no music, not to mention that it would be horribly clichéd."

Artemis shrugged. "Some clichés are too good to pass up, you know," he said hoisting Holly up and reaching his arms down to encircle her waist. Holly's arms barely reached his midsection.

Ignoring the rather glaring height difference, they started turning in slow circles until they heard Juliet shout 'OH MY GOD, RICKEY! WHAT'S HAPPENING?"

Breaking away to smile at each other, they shot annoyed looks in Juliet's general direction, piqued that they had been interrupted. The annoyance disappeared however when they saw Juliet and James frantically crowded around Rickey, who was lying on the ground and choking up tons of saliva, gasping and turning blue in the face.

Rickey's eyes were bulging even more than usual and the whites of his eyes were now completely red and with one of his hands he was rubbing frantically at it. With his other hand, he was switching between beating it furiously on the ground and clutching at his neck in a frenzied manner. He was making all sorts of scary choking noises and strangles groans. He was thrashing around on the ground.

"ARTEMIS! GET OVER HERE!" Juliet shrieked, beside herself in fear. Tears streamed unrestrictedly down her cheeks as she held on tightly to Rickey's arm, which had turned bright red.

Artemis and Holly hurried over and knelt down, taking in the scene. Taking charge, Artemis assessed the situation from a purely professional point of view, cutting off all stream of emotion. He knew that this was some kind of result from Rickey's rabies; he just needed to know how to help him.

"I need to know how long he's had the rabies. If he's had them for over a week, he's going to die today. Of course, he might die anyway as rabies leaves no survivors but we might be able to reboot his system and rewrite the DNA structure to stop the rabies virus from changing the gene codes any more."

Rickey, not comprehending Artemis's speech, suddenly lost control and lunged at James, a crazed look in his eyes. He tried to bite James ferociously, but James managed to throw him off before he could get infected.

"We need to strap him down!" Holly yelled over Rickey's commotion. They hurriedly each grabbed a limb, looking on grimly and fearfully as Rickey snapped his jaws loudly and viciously, and excess saliva flew everywhere. Since the rabies had closed up his throat, Rickey couldn't swallow and could barely breathe. The rabies was also literally changing his genetic code, causing his organs to change form and causing him to become more aggressive and animal-like.

James noticed Adam walking up the fields and sprinted over to him. "How long has Rickey had rabies?" he barked quickly, hopping from one foot to another in agitation.

Adam scratched his head leisurely, trying to remember. James had to refrain from wringing his neck. "I think it was four days ago."

James raced back over to where the others were. Gasping for breath, he wheezed out, "Adam says Rickey became infected about four days ago."

Artemis nodded. "We need to get him to a hospital, now." He stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled a piercing whistle, and at once Butler hurtled out of the bushes and over to them.

"We need to get Rickey to the hospital, now."

Butler nodded, scooped up Rickey and they all sprinted towards the Rolls Royce and drove off to the hospital.

Getting there in record time, Butler used his intimidation methods to get Rickey seen immediately. They all waited in the waiting room, shifting from one foot to the other, too restless to sit down or keep still.

They had only known Rickey for a short time, but they would all be sad if they lost him. Juliet the most. She had been the one who had really bonded with him the most. Silent tears were streaming down her face nonstop as they waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

This waiting reminded Artemis of waiting for the bus.

He didn't like waiting.

After a few hours of excruciating waiting, a doctor in light green scrubs came out to talk to them.

"You guys are the group that brought in the rabid seven year old, right?"

They nodded fervishly, crowding around her. A big smile broke out on her face.

"He's going to live!" They all let out a huge breath of overwhelming relief that no one knew they had been holding.

Juliet started full out crying from happiness now, and Butler patted her back soothingly.

A few minutes later, Rickey walked out into the waiting room, smiling hugely at them. Everyone shouted his name euphorically and rushed to hug him.

They were all so relieved, relieved. Rickey was okay. He was going to be okay.

Butler broke up the group hug after a while and said, "I'm going to have to drop you back off at camp, James."

James nodded reluctantly. "What about Rickey?" Juliet shook her head fiercely and Hugged Rickey even tighter than before.

"No. He's going to live with us now. I'm adopting him."

"Parents?"

"Don't have any," Rickey replied. "Juliet can be my mommy." Juliet started crying again.

They all piled in the car, and Artemis sat next to Holly, their fingers intertwined.

When Butler finally pulled up at sports camp, James hopped out of the car and stretched. "Wow. Will I see you guys tomorrow?"

Artemis looked at the others and laughed. "Not a chance, James. One day of sports camp is pretty much more than enough."

James shrugged. "Hey, I know the feeling. It's like this everyday." He revised his statement at everyone's raised eyebrows. "Okay, today was crazier than normal. But still. So, will I ever see any of you again?"

"What school do you go to?" Artemis asked.

"St. Bartleby's," James replied. Artemis grinned.

"Same, see you on September first," he said.

"That's awesome, mate, maybe we can room together!" Artemis nodded.

"Yeah, that'd be fun."

"Anyway, it was awesome knowing you guys! See you later, Holly, Artemis, Juliet, Rickey, Butler!" With that, James tapped the car door twice and turned around, walking back towards the camp fields. He looked back and waved, a smile breaking out on his face.

They all waved back, then drove to Fowl Manor.

When they arrived, Butler, Juliet, and Rickey all went upstairs to find a place for Rickey to sleep, and Holly and Artemis headed for the dining room.

"So, if you had a chance to do today over again, would you?" Holly asked, playing with Artemis's fingers absently.

He laughed and held her hands. "Of course, if it meant I'd get with you." Holly laughed and kissed him.

"What a day," she said.

Artemis thought about the day. The crazy counselors, the campers, the plain insanity.

"Ahhh, what a day," he repeated. And it was true. The day had been horrific at moments, fantastic at others. Exactly how it should be in the life of the infamous Artemis Fowl.

**OHMYGOD, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S OVER! I am so happy with how this came out :D I know rabies victims never survive, but I couldn't face killing off young Rickey. You understand. :)**

**Anyway, I just wanted to thank everyone who's stuck with this story, you guys are amazing :D I'm so grateful for all the support :D**

**Anyways, thanks for reading! REVIEWWWWWW! ;D**


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